LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
Shelf_< 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE POSITIVE 

Evidences of Christianity. 



THE REV. B. W. BOND, 

Of the Baltimore Conference, M. E. Church, South. 



EDITED BY THOS. 0. SUMMERS, D.D., LL.D. 



Jf#sfoi/fe, gmn.: 
SOUTHEKN METHODIST PUBLISHING HOUSE. 

1880. 

It 



- -\ no' 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by 

B. W. BOND, 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 




IETKODUCTOKY 2STOTE. 



The author of this vigorous treatise is an estimable minis- 
ter of the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South. He bears the honored name of Beverly 
Waugh, late Bishop in the M. E. Church — a warm and 
life-long friend of the Bond connection, in Maryland, to 
which the author belongs. It may well be supposed, there- 
fore, that he was steeped in Methodism from his birth ; and 
if Methodism is " Christianity in earnest," as Dr. Chalmers 
says, an earnest defense of Christianity may be expected in 
this work. The reader will not be disappointed. 

The conception of the book originated in the author's 
careful perusal and study of the best works on the Evi- 
dences of Christianity — Paley, of course, being prominent. 
Encouraged by judicious friends, he prosecuted his investi- 
gations, and committed his views to writing, until they were 
developed into a*well-proportioned treatise of sufficient size, 
and, we will add, of due importance, to justify its publica- 
tion. "We have had the pleasure and profit of its perusal 
as it has been passing through the press, and we hesitate 
not to say it is an excellent resume of the Evidences of Chris- 
tianity, as presented by Paley, Bow, and other apologists, 
embodying much fresh original matter adapted to the " per- 
ilous times " in which we live. Some, perhaps, may think* 
that it was hardly necessary to refute for the thousandth 
time the argument of Hume against the possibility of prov- 
ing a miracle — as, e. g., the resurrection of Christ, on which 
the system of Christianity is based — especially as Hume 
virtually acknowledged its worthlessness to Campbell, who 
graveled him, as he says he "graveled" a Jesuit in the Jesuits' 

(3) 



4 Introductory Note. 

College of La Fleche, where he used his argument to expose 
the fiction of popish miracles — " perhaps you may think," he 
writes to Campbell, "the sophistry of it savors plainly of the 
place of its birth." Indeed, it does ! But, contemptible as 
it may be thought, and oft-refuted as it has been, it is con- 
tinually paraded by unbelievers, and must be continuall 
exposed by those who are set for the defense of the gospel. 

The Reverend Doctor Abbott, preaching in Oxford Uni- 
versity, makes a fling at Paley's Evidences and Horse Paul- 
inse — and with good reason — as, following in the wake of 
Hume, he eliminates every thing miraculous from the Gos- 
pel History, except a few cases of healing, which he would 
say are no more miracles than those wrought at the tomb 
of the Abbe Paris — that is, they were the effects of imag- 
ination, etc., and not supernatural works at all. 

Truly, it behooves us to contend earnestly for the faith, 
when it is thus assailed in the foremost Christian university 
of the world! 

Whatever value may be assigned to the internal evidences 
of Christianity — and there is much, and it is fully admitted 
by the author of this book — yet he has done a good work 
in developing from the present advanced position of the 
science of apologetics the historical proofs of the divine 
original of our holy religion, demonstrating, as he has done 
in this treatise, that we have not followed cunningly-devised 
fables, and we are not deceived, nor are we deceiving others, 
when we affirm that the religion of Jesus is not of men, but 
is from heaven. Every believer in Christ is warranted in 
exclaiming, with the utmost confidence — 

Hence, and forever, from my heart 
I bid my doubts and fears depart ; 
And to those hands my soul resign, 
Which bear credentials so divine. 

Thos. 0. Summers. 

Nashville, Term., April 13, 1880. 



Contents. 

PART FIRST. 

The Competency and the Credibility of the Evidence. 



CHAPTER I. 



PAGE 



Necessity of Evidence — Plan of the Work, . 9 

CHAPTER II 
The Possibility of Miracles, 13 

CHAPTER III. 

The Competency of the Evidence — I. The Com- 
petency of Evidence in General to Prove 
Miracles, 29 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Competency of the Evidence — II Prob- 
able Evidence is Sufficient io Prove a Rev- 
elation, 59 

(5) 



6 Contents. 

CHAPTER V. 
The Authenticity of the Evidence, .... 75 



PAGE 



PART SECOND. 

The Weight of the Evidence — The Superhuman Facts. 



CHAPTER L 
The Superhuman Advent of Christ, . . .111 

CHAPTER II. 
The Superhuman Character of Christ, . . . 128 

CHAPTER III 

The Superhuman Teaching of Christ — I. Its 
Reasonableness, 143 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Superhuman Teaching of Christ — II. The 
Analogy of Nature — III Its Superiority 
Both to Human Reason and Nature, . . 162 

CHAPTER V. 
The Evidence of Prophecy, 194 



Contents. 7 

CHAPTER VI 

PAGE 

The Evidence of Miracles — I. In General, . 209 

CHAPTER VII 

The Evidence of Miracles — II The Resur- 
rection of Christ, 231 

CHAPTER VIII 
The Supernatural Results, 254 

CHAPTER IX. * 

The Weight of the Evidence — Recapitulation 
and Conclusion, 273 



The Positive Evidences of Christianity. 

PAET FIRST. 
The Competency and the Credibility of the Evidence. 



CHAPTER I. 

NECESSITY OF EVIDENCE — PLAN OF THE WORK. 

The object of the following work is to prove 
the divinity of the Christian religion. To do 
this, the writer will endeavor to present simply 
the positive evidences that exist therefor, and 
to show by them that Christianity manifests a 
character that is plainly no less than divine. 
Confining the discussion strictly to this one 
particular, all examination into kindred ques- 
tions, however interesting and closely related, 
should be omitted ; but in the determination 
of the subject itself, under consideration, no 
pains ought to be spared to examine it in all 
its parts, and to apply every possible test to 
ascertain the truth. Rather, it should be the 
grateful duty of a believer to strive to show 
how the Christian religion, in every possible 
1* (9) 



10 Positive Evidences. [p a rt I. 

way — as well in the great facts upon which it 
is founded, its own essential nature, its attend- 
ant circumstances, as in its actual results upon 
the characters and lives of men — exhibits such 
supereminent characteristics as prove it to be 
divine. 

In this effort, however, no attempt should be 
made to appeal to any other principles than 
those that usually determine the decisions of 
men. Christianity does not, and cannot, claim 
any exemption from the application of the ordi- 
nary tests that are used to ascertain the truth of 
things. In matters of religion, no more than in 
any other human affairs, is it to be allowed that 
questions shall be decided by partiality, preju- 
dice, or passion ; but only upon a fair consid- 
eration, conducted according to the principles 
which are universally acknowledged to consti- 
tute the proper test of truth. Only by proving 
her claims can Religion have any authority 
over us, or be entitled to our reverence. To 
her evidences, then, must she first appeal ; and 
in so doing, it is manifest, she must submit to 
be tried by the ordinary principles of evidence. 
Now, those principles are most distinctly and 
familiarly asserted and applied in the deter- 
mination of trials before our ordinary courts 
of law. As used there, they have long been 
known and acknowledged as the settled max- 



Ch. l.] Competency and Credibility. 11 

ims which the wisdom and experience of ages 
have agreed to be the just criterion of truth. 
To them, accordingly, we shall appeal; and, 
fearing nothing for Christianity in their ap- 
plication to her evidences, ask only that the 
reader will consent also to abide by their de- 
cision, and acquiesce in its result. 

The following pages, therefore, will discuss 
the Christian Evidences in an order modeled 
upon that which is constantly followed in our 
legal tribunals. There the examination of the 
evidence presented consists of two main parts ; 
and the inquiry is made — first, whether the 
testimony offered is actual testimony in the 
case under consideration — that is, whether it 
has any material bearing upon the case, and 
whether it is true ; and, secondly, being mate- 
rial and true, what is its weight? Accord- 
ingly, such is the order followed here. The 
work is therefore divided into two Parts. The 
Second Part discusses — The Weight of the Ev- 
idence in favor of the Divinity of Christianity, 
and presents in its proof: (a) The Superhu- 
man Facts upon which Christianity is founded, 
as displayed in — 1. The Advent of Christ ; 2. 
The Character of Christ ; 3. His Teachings ; 
4. His Prophecies ; 5. His Miracles, (b) Its 
Superhuman Results, in the changes it has 
wrought in the characters and lives of men, 



12 Positive Evidences. [Part I. 

and in its wonderful growth, (c) The Com- 
bined Weight of these several testimonies to 
the one fact of the Divinity of Christianity. 

Previous to this, however, w T e must show 
that the evidence thus adduced is — first, such 
as is proper to be brought forward in support 
of such a position ; and, secondly, that, being 
in its nature proper to be adduced, it is also 
true. Part First, then, will be occupied with 
the discussion of the admissibility and genu- 
ineness of the evidence. 

At the outset we are met with the objection 
that no testimony can be allowed to prove the 
supernatural, inasmuch as the occurrence in 
this world of any thing that is supernatural, 
or miraculous, is impossible in itself, and ab- 
surd. A farther objection is also made, that, 
even if it were possible, no testimony is com- 
petent to establish the miraculous, since our 
experience of nature is that it is always the 
same, while that of testimony is that it is 
sometimes false. We must, then, consider, 
first, the possibility of miracles ; then will fol- 
Ioav the discussion of the competency of evi- 
dence to prove them ; and next, the authentic- 
ity of the evidence actually adduced, and its 
sufficiency to command our belief in the actual 
occurrence of the facts asserted by it. 



Ch. 2.] Competency and Credibility. 13 



CHAPTER II. 

THE POSSIBILITY OF MIEACLES. 

At the outset we are called upon to show that 
miracles are possible. The objection is urged 
against the divinity of Christianity that all 
evidence whatsoever is incompetent to estab- 
lish such a claim, inasmuch as it necessarily 
involves the occurrence of the miraculous, and 
the miraculous is impossible, because the laws 
of nature never vary, and cannot be broken. 
It is said that all things earthly are linked 
together in one chain of physical causes and 
effects, in which there are no "breaks," no 
"rents," but in which each successive being or 
event has been regularly produced by the pre- 
ceding being or event, through the operation 
of natural laws, and natural laws only, and 
that thus there is no room left for miracles. 
It is farther claimed that there exist no ener- 
gies or forces except physical energies and 
forces, and that "matter" and "force" are 
the only primary and essential agencies in the 
world, and the sources of all the forms of be- 
ing. And it is moreover urged that a miracle 
would be an interference with, and disturbance 



14 Positive Evidences. [Parti. 

of, the settled order of the world, and a sus- 
pension, breaking, or abrogation of the laws 
of nature ; and that thus, admitting even the 
existence of a God, who is the Author and 
Ruler of nature, he would be, by miracle, de- 
parting from his settled plan of procedure, in 
a singular and inexplicable way ; that thus he 
would be frustrating his own laws ; and final- 
ly, that thus he would show either that his 
original plans and laws were defective and in- 
sufficient for all his purposes, or, that being 
sufficient, they have been capriciously, and 
without adequate reason, violated by himself, 
and that in either case he is presented in an 
unworthy aspect. 

1. In answering these objections against the 
possibility of miracles, let us first notice that 
we must expect, in any express and immediate 
revelation of God's will, something of the mi- 
raculous. Such a revelation in itself is, of 
necessity, miraculous ; for nowhere in nature 
does God speak immediately to man. The 
very term, revelation, indicates the declaration 
of something unknown by nature — something 
made known supernaturally, or miraculously. 
That Christianity, therefore, which claims to 
be a revelation from God, should have some- 
thing of the miraculous is what we ought to 
expect ; and the fact is not therefore a priori, 



CIi. 2.] Competency and Credibility. 15 

and abstractly, an objection to the reasonable- 
ness of Christianity, but the contrary. We 
must demand of any system that professes to 
be by direct revelation from God, that it be 
miraculous. Christianity without it would be 
unreasonable, and entitled to no credit, as such 
a revelation. 

Moreover, we must remember that these 
objections, if valid, destroy all hope of any 
revealed religion whatever. If there can be 
no miracle, then there can be no direct revela- 
tion from God ; and so man never has had, and 
never can have, any sure hope set before him. 
All are like the heathen — left merely to the 
dim light of nature and the doubtful deduc- 
tion of reason ; and there never can be any 
sufficient light and satisfactory assurance, any 
clear hope. It is, then, not in the interests 
of Christianity only that it is necessary to es- 
tablish the possibility of miracles, but also in 
those of all revealed religion whatsoever. 

Against such objections stands the general 
belief of mankind, in all ages, that miracles 
are possible. That such is the common belief 
of men, appears undeniably from universal 
history. JSTo people in any age have been with- 
out faith in a supernatural Power, as well as 
in the ability of that Power to manifest him- 
self supernaturally to men. To men general- 



16 Positive Evidences. .[Tart I. 

ly, it has seemed, as to Rothe, quoted by Van 
Oosterzee (Dogmatics, etc.), that since "God 
has subjected to man the powers of nature, he 
never could have subjected to them himself — 
his freedom, his almighty will — and so place 
in them a barrier to his own free working." 
To the common judgment of mankind, then, 
the idea has nothing absurd in it, but is 
thought to be agreeable with true reason. 
This is certainly a presumption in its favor. 
Any opinion in which we find the voices of 
the whole human race, of all ages, uniting, is 
surely entitled to great weight, if not to be 
justly regarded as the expression of the most 
certain conclusions attainable by human rea- 
son. 

In reply, it may be urged that this opinion 
of the mass of mankind is denied by some 
men of great powers of mind and attainments, 
on the authority of science, and that therefore 
such a belief cannot be true. To this we re- 
ply: First, we should remember that scien- 
tific men, however deservedly respected, are 
not to be regarded as infallible. They have 
made many mistakes, and have changed, and 
changed again, many of their theories and de- 
ductions, within the memory of even one gen- 
eration. The French Academy, one of the 
leading bodies of scientific men in the world, 



Ch. 2.] Competency and Credibility. 17 

rejected, at various times, in the name of sci- 
ence (vide Christlieb's "Modern Doubts," etc.), 
(1) the use of quinine; (2) vaccination; (3) 
lightning-conductors ; (4) the existence of me- 
teors; (5) the steam-engine. Scientific men 
are yet fallible in their deductions as to what 
is and what is not possible. They are, also, 
like other men — liable to be moved by preju- 
dice and passion, and are certainly capable, 
through their very hostility to Christianity, 
whenever they have such a hostility, of arriv- 
ing at wrong conclusions respecting matters 
affecting our religion. But, secondly, miracles 
are not thus denied by all scientific men, nor 
by many of the greatest, but, on the contrary — 
as we shall see from extracts subsequently 
quoted — are asserted by them to have occurred, 
as shown by the inevitable deductions of sci- 
ence itself. The settled conclusions of science, 
then, cannot be said to oppose this universal 
conviction of mankind ; nay, her teachings are 
claimed to be in harmony therewith. At most, 
her expounders are divided — at best, they are 
not infallible ; and therefore the presumption 
in favor of miracles, arising from the general 
consent of men, remains unimpaired, to acid its 
force to our argument. 

2. But to reply more directly to those ob- 
jections, it is denied that miracles are so out 



18 Positive Evidences. [p ar t I. 

of harmony with the laws of nature. Nature 
is not a system consisting of the working of 
laws admitting of no exception and no interfer- 
ence, nor is it of an uninterrupted chain of 
physical causes and effects. On the contrary, 
there are exceptions and interferences, and 
there are "rents" and "breaks" where no 
preceding merely physical cause can be shown, 
or even conceived, and where therefore we 
must conclude that there has been a super- 
natural interference — where we can only say, 
" This is the finger of God." For, 

(1) The laws of nature — understanding that 
phrase in the sense in which it is commonly 
employed — are not invariable and without ex- 
ception. The fact that water becomes lighter 
when frozen, in contradiction to the general 
law that liquids become heavier when frozen, 
proves there may be exceptions to general 
laws, and such as are caused only, so far as 
we can see, by the supreme will of the Creator. 
We know from this that God has not chosen 
to govern the world by one uniform and in- 
variable law only. And, if so, it is no more 
unreasonable to conclude that he would make 
exceptions to such laws for the spiritual and 
eternal welfare of men by miracles, than he 
would do so for their temporary and bodily 
welfare, by causing water to become lighter 



Ch. 2.] Competency and Credibility. 19 

when frozen. And if he saw fit, and was able 
to make such an exception permanently for 
all time, in the case of some particular sub- 
stance, as water, he could do so also in ordain- 
ing that such exceptions should likewise hap- 
pen, as to all substances, at some particular 
time — as e. g., the giving of a revelation. 

Moreover, it is not true that the laws of 
nature are not interfered with. On the con- 
trary, the lower set of laws is continually in- 
terfered with by the higher — the mechanical 
by the chemical, and the chemical by the vital. 
Thus, the force of gravitation is daily over- 
come by* the force of the rising plant, the 
chemical dissolution of the body by the pow- 
ers of life, etc. The heavy iron is lifted by 
the magnet — why may not all nature and man 
himself, in the presence of God, yield to the 
superior force of spiritual power when exerted 
upon them? Surely nature herself every- 
where teaches the subordination, for beneficent 
ends, of the lower laws to the higher; and 
surely this, itself a higher law of nature, al- 
lows the possibility at least of the subordina- 
tion of all nature in miracles, for the highest 
interests — the spiritual and eternal welfare — 
of men. At any rate, it is certain that we find 
that some laws of nature are continually in- 
terfered with and overcome. Miracles, then, 



20 Positive Evidences. [p ar t I. 

bring no unheard -of disorder into nature. 
True, in miracles, the manner of their inter- 
ference may be unknown, or be altogether dif- 
ferent from that seen in nature ; but the mere 
manner in which a thing is done cannot afford 
a solid ground of objection against the pos- 
sibility of the thing being done. The fact 
remains that the laws of nature may be inter- 
fered with and overcome even by human pow- 
er — it is for the objector to show why they may 
not also be interfered with and overcome by 
power that is divine.* 

(2) There does not exist an uninterrupted 
chain of physical causes and effects. There 
are " rents" and " breaks," and therefore there 
is reason to conclude that there has been su- 
pernatural interference in nature. From the 
" Unseen Universe," p. 247, a work by Profs. 
Stewart and Tait, of England, physicists of 

* The absurd unreasonableness of the objection against 
miracles is well illustrated by an incident that came under 
the writer's notice. A young, new-fledged son of -zEscula- 
pius, who had imbibed skeptical notions, and had read 
Tyndall's prayer-test arguments, was declaiming with evi- 
dent great self-satisfaction against the absurdity of pray- 
ing for rain, etc. "Science has demonstrated," said he, 
" that the falling of rain depends on atmospheric changes 
alone. How then can prayer bring rain ? Give me a few 
cannon, and J will bring it." God is of course feebler than 
a scientist! 



Ch. 2.] Competency and Credibility. 21 

the highest authority, we take the following 
extract: "Formidable breaks are brought be- 
fore us by science. There is, to begin with, 
that formidable phenomenon, the production 
in time of the visible universe. Secondly, there 
is a break hardly less formidable, the original 
production of life ; and there is, thirdly, that 
break, recognized by Wallace and his school 
of natural history, which seems to have oc- 
curred at the first production of man. Greatly 
as we are indebted to Darwin, and Huxley, and 
those who have prominently advocated the 
possibility of the present system of things 
having been developed by forces and opera- 
tions which we see before us, it must be re- 
garded by us, and we think it is regarded by 
them, as a defect in their system, that these 
breaks remain unaccounted for." That the 
physical universe must have thus had its be- 
ginning in time, is shown also by such other 
scientific men of the highest authority as Sir 
William Thompson and Clerk Maxwell (vide 
Tait's Recent Advances in Physical Science) ; 
and the same is true also of the origin of phys- 
ical life, and of the appearance of man on the 
earth. It thus appears that there has been 
no such uninterrupted "chain" of physical 
causes and effects as is alleged, and there is 
therefore no argument from this against mira- 



22 Positive Evidences. [p ar t I. 

cles to be made in the name of science. Nay, 
in thus disclosing to us these " breaks," science 
itself teaches us that there have been miracles 
of the highest order ; and instead of furnishing 
a ground for rejecting the miraculous, it affirms 
its existence, and even its necessity, to account 
for the world and its phenomena. 

(3) Nor is it true that reason forces us to 
conclude that there are only physical agencies 
at work in the world. What are the laws of 
nature? The very existence of law, instead 
of chaos, throughout the physical universe, 
proves on the most reasonable supposition the 
existence of an all-pervading and all-govern- 
ing Intelligence. In the smaller affairs of 
our e very-day life — where Ave have personal 
experience — we regard the signs of order and 
rule-as the certain marks of a controlling mind. 
Must we, in those transcendent matters in 
which we have no experience, come to a di- 
rectly opposite conclusion, when we see such 
signs in their utmost perfection? And what 
is force, or energy ? The scientists themselves 
tell us that it is distinct from matter. All 
that they pretend to say about it is, that it is 
the working, powerful agent present in all 
changes occurring in matter; but what it is in 
itself they can tell nothing, save that it is not 
matter. But if it is not matter, can it be any 



Ch. 2.] Competency and Credibility. 23 

thing else than something that is immaterial 
and spiritual ? And may it not consist merely 
in the working of God's will on matter just 
as our will, in a like incomprehensible way to 
us, works upon the matter of our bodies ? Some 
of the best scientific men have concluded from 
the facts of science that there is an unseen and 
spiritual universe. The authors mentioned 
above in their remarkable book, " The Unseen 
Universe," elaborately argue its necessary ex- 
istence from the consideration, among others, 
of the scientific "Principle of Continuity," 
" which, since this visible universe must come 
to an end, demands a continuance of the uni- 
verse still ; and thus we are forced to believe 
that there is something beyond that which is 
visible" (p. 94). And to the same conclusion 
they quote as follows : " The deservedly fa- 
mous Dr. Thomas Young has the following 
passage in his lectures on natural philosophy : 
'Besides this porosity, there is still room for 
the supposition that even the ultimate parti- 
cles of matter may be permeable to the causes 
of attractions of various kinds, especially if 
those causes are immaterial ; nor is there any 
thing in the unprejudiced study of physical 
philosophy that can induce us to doubt the 
existence of immaterial substances — on the 
contrary, we see analogies that lead us almost 



24 Positive Evidences. [Parti. 

directly to such an opinion. The electrical 
fluid is supposed to be essentially different 
from common matter ; the general medium of 
light and heat, according to some, or the prin- 
ciple of calorics, according to others, is equally 
distinct from it. We see forms of matter, dif- 
fering in subtilty and mobility, under the name 
of solids, liquids, and gases ; above these are 
the semi-material existences, which produce 
the phenomena of electricity and magnetism, 
and either caloric or a universal ether. Higher 
still, perhaps, are the causes of gravitation 
and the immediate agents in attractions of all 
kinds, which exhibit some phenomena appar- 
ently still more remote from all that is com- 
patible with material bodies. And of these 
different orders of beings the more refined and 
immaterial appear to pervade freely the gross- 
er. It seems therefore natural to believe that 
the analogy may be continued still farther, 
until it rises into existences absolutely imma- 
terial and spiritual. We know not but that 
thousands of spiritual worlds may exist un- 
seen forever by human eyes ; nor have we any 
reason to suppose that even the presence of 
matter, in a given spot, necessarily excludes 
these existences from it '" (p. 201). And again, 
from Prof. Stokes: "Admitting to the full as 
highly probable, though not completely de- 



Ch. 2.] Competency and Credibility. 25 

monstrated, the applicability to living beings 
of the laws which have been ascertained with 
reference to dead matter, I feel constrained at 
the same time to admit the existence of a 
mysterious something lying beyond, a something 
sui generis, which I regard, not as balancing 
and suspending the ordinary physical laws, 
but as working with them, and through them, 
to the attainment of a desired end. What this 
something, which we call life, may be, is a pro- 
found mystery. . . . When from the phe- 
nomena of life we pass on to those of mind, 
we enter a region still more mysterious. We 
can readily imagine that we may here be deal- 
ing with phenomena altogether transcending 
those of mere life, in some such way as those 
of life transcend, as I have endeavored to in- 
fer, those of chemistry and molecular attrac- 
tions, or as the laws of chemical affinity in 
their turn transcend those of mere mechanics. 
Science can be expected to do but little to aid 
us here, since the instrument of research is 
itself the object of investigation. It can but 
enlighten us as to the depths of our ignorance, 
and lead us to look to a higher aid for that 
which most nearly concerns our well-being" 
(p. 235). And the authors themselves of " The 
Unseen Universe," after an independent and 
extended discussion of the matter, say, page 
2 



26 Positive Evidences. [p ar t i. 

221: "Let us pause for a moment, and con- 
sider the position into which science has 
brought us. We are led by scientific logic 
to an unseen, and by scientific analogy to the 
spirituality of this unseen. In fine, our con- 
clusion is that the visible universe has been 
developed by an intelligence resident in the 
unseen." 

(4) Farther, these facts show that miracles 
are not in disharmony with the history and 
constitution of nature, nor destructive of its 
order. Adopting again the language of the 
authors quoted above (page 21), in reference 
to the existence of those "breaks" which un- 
deniably appear in nature, we may say: "If 
this be true, the discussion regarding miracles 
must be removed altogether from the domain 
of science, and this for the very good reason 
that scientific logic admits the occurrence of 
events at least as astounding. The question 
is now rather one for the historian and the 
moral philosopher to decide." Nay, we may 
claim that miracles are in analogy with some 
of the ordinary workings of nature. For, first, 
science leads us to conclude that the ordinary 
laws of nature are the exertions of an unseen 
and spiritual power, and miracles are nothing 
more ; but, next, we cannot say that the laws of 
nature are broken, or abrogated, by miracles, but 



Ch. 2.] Competency and Credibility. 27 

only that they have been superseded by the 
coming in at a certain point of a superior cause, 
working not hostilely but superior to them, just 
as the law of gravitation is superseded — not 
broken, or abrogated — by me, a higher cause, 
when I lift a stone from the ground. In fact, 
the law, in such cases, continues to operate all 
the time ; it is only overcome by the superior 
power present. Or else, if this be abrogation, 
then are the laws of nature being broken and 
abrogated every hour, and are not invariable ; 
and consequently there can be no objection to 
miracles on that ground. 

(5) Miracles, therefore, cause no destruction 
of the forces and laws of nature. Rather, in- 
tended, as they were in Christianity, for res- 
toration, healing, and the bringing in again 
of real order and harmony, both physical and 
moral, to a world already disturbed by sin, 
they work toward the reestablishment of the 
laws and forces of the real, original nature, 
and tend to secure her primal symmetry and 
strength. 

(6) Finally, they do not necessarily suppose 
any defect in the original plans of God, to sup- 
ply which defect they were afterward wrought. 
For we have no ground to assume that they 
did not form a part of his original plan, and 
were not intended from the first to be wrought 



28 Positice Evidences. [Part I. 

as occasion demanded. Rather the contrary. 
They were necessary in his original creations, 
in the beginning of the world, of physical life, 
and of man; they are equally necessary, as 
we have seen, whenever a revelation is to be 
given ; and it is not unreasonable to infer that 
while their very character as miraculous pre- 
cludes them from ever being common occur- 
rences, they may be, nevertheless, if indeed 
they must not be, God's regular and ordinary 
method of working in the world on such extra- 
ordinary occasions. 

We claim, then, that there appears in nature 
no physical or moral reason from which to con- 
clude the impossibility of miracles ; and since 
there is also no violence done by them to the 
divine attributes of truth, wisdom, and love, 
but, as we shall hereafter see, they are indeed 
most strongly prompted by all those infinite 
characteristics of his, we conclude that mira- 
cles are possible with God, and that therefore 
a revelation may be given of his will. 



Ch. 3.] Competency and Credibility. 29 



CHAPTER III. 

THE COMPETENCY OF THE EVIDENCE — I. THE 
COMPETENCY OF EVIDENCE IN GENEEAL TO 
PROVE MIEACLES. 

Allowing, then, the possibility of miracles, 
our next inquiry, in the consideration of the 
Admissibility of the Evidence, must be wheth- 
er the diameter of the evidence presented is in 
itself such as that it may be admitted to prove 
them. This will constitute our examination 
into the Competency of the Evidence, and will 
divide itself into two branches — viz. : I. The 
Competency of Evidence in General to Prove 
Miracles. II. The Sufficiency of Probable 
Evidence to Prove them. In the present 
chapter Ave will consider the first of these two 
subjects. 

Christianity, indeed, alone of all religious sys- 
tems, offers a recognized body of proof in sup- 
port of its claims. None other, whether of the 
ancient mythologies or the Mohammedanism, 
Buddhism, etc., of the modern heathen, has 
ever even pretended to any evidence of its claims 
to be a supernatural communication of divine 
truth. No such body of proof as the Buddhist 



30 Positice Evidences. [Parti. 

Evidences, the Mohammedan Evidences, has 
ever been known to literature. But Christian- 
ity has always possessed and offered such an ar- 
ray of proof ; so that the phrase, " The Christian 
Evidences," has become a term understood and 
familiar to all. Indeed, Christianity has been 
able to make all her advances only through 
those evidences. Renouncing alike the power 
of the sword and all appeals to passion or to 
prejudice ; teaching, on the contrary, as one of 
her cardinal principles, the utmost self-sacri- 
fice and renunciation of the world, she has con- 
stantly appealed, from the beginning, to her 
evidences, and sought to convince the reason 
of men. It was thus that she won her way — 
first, among the Jews ; then gained, through 
three hundred years of persecution, gradual 
acceptance by the cultivated pagans of Greece 
and Rome; and with her evidences she next 
met and conquered the rude and savage bar- 
barians, the conquerors of Rome. By them 
she has hitherto come off victorious from all 
the assaults of skepticism at home ; by them 
she has destroyed, or is destroying, every op- 
posing system, however gigantic, and is daily 
making fresh advances against the ancient and 
mighty systems of India and China. The his- 
tory of the continual exhibition of those evi- 
dences is the record of her continual triumphs. 



Ch. 3.] Competency and Credibility. 31 

Subjected during a period of nearly nineteen 
hundred years, in the most enlightened na- 
tions and ages of the world, to the most varied 
and searching criticism, they still remain, not 
only undiminished, but immensely enlarged 
and strengthened, as each successive age has 
added, by its investigations of her proofs, and 
by its own test of her merits, fresh witness to 
her truth. 

This singular exception and superiority of 
Christianity to all other religious systems 
seems of itself worthy, at once, to separate it 
from all others, and raise it above them all in 
the estimation of a candid and reflecting mind. 
Nay, it is not too much to claim that of itself 
it raises a presumption in favor of the divin- 
ity of Christianity; for were it in the power 
of human capacity to forge any such well-con- 
nected and elaborate evidences, it is reasona- 
ble to believe that at least one of the many 
founders of false systems, intellectual as they 
undoubtedly were, would have done so. That 
not one of them has, or that, having done so, 
the forged evidences have all been so weak as 
to have sunk into total oblivion, is a presump- 
tion, at least, that human capacity is not equal 
to the forgery of so elaborate, so complete, and 
so valid, a body of evidences as that which 
Christianity possesses. But if they have not 



32 Positive Evidences. [Parti. 

been forged, they are genuine, and Christian- 
ity is true and divine. 

The objection, however, is urged against the 
truth and divinity of Christianity, that all evi- 
dence whatsoever is incompetent to establish 
its claims. It might be supposed that it would 
not have been disputed by any one that it was 
capable, somehow, of being proved. But Chris- 
tianity has been made to meet in turn every 
possible criticism, and accordingly it has been 
urged against her, among other objections, 
that, admitting even the possibility of mira- 
cles, yet no human testimony was sufficient to 
prove them, or to establish Christianity, which 
necessarily includes miracles. In the words 
of Hume, the father of this objection, it is 
asserted that "Ko testimony is sufficient to 
establish a miracle, since a miracle being a 
violation of the laws of nature, which a firm 
and unalterable experience has established, 
the proof against a miracle, from the very 
nature of the fact, is as entire as any argu- 
ment from experience can be, whereas our ex- 
perience of human veracity, which is the sole 
foundation of the evidence of testimony, is far 
from being uniform, and can therefore never 
preponderate against that experience which 
admits of no exception." In refutation of this 
we oiler the following considerations: 



Ch. 3.] Competency and Credibility. 33 

1. His statement of the facts from which he 
draws his argument is wholly incorrect. 1st., 
As we have already seen, miracles are in no 
sense "violations of the laws of nature," any 
more than is every interference with the lower 
laws by higher powers, which we daily see — as, 
e. g n in the overcoming by our wills of the iner- 
tia of our bodies, etc. But if these constitute 
" violations " of the laws of nature, then are we 
continually beholding them, and then our "ex- 
perience," instead of establishing the inviola- 
bility of the laws of nature, in reality contin- 
ually establishes the opposite. Then if the 
interference of a higher power with the lower 
laws of nature are violations of those laws, no 
argument drawn from our experience of the 
inviolability of nature can be brought against 
miracles ; if they are not violations, then mira- 
cles, which consist essentially in such interfer- 
ences, are not violations. In either case, the 
argument against them falls to the ground. 
2d. Our " experience " of the " laws of nature " 
is not uniform and without exception ; for that 
which we call the "laws of nature" is not the 
limited personal knowledge of the natural phe- 
nomena around him, and his deductions there- 
from, which every man can have, or that any 
one man can possibly arrive at, but our ac- 
cepted deductions from the collected observa- 
2* 



34 Positive Evidences. [Parti. 

tions of men generally as to all the phenom- 
ena of nature possible to be made. Nothing 
less than this can be called "the laws of nat- 
ure." It follows that when we speak of the 
" experience" of those laws which men have, 
we cannot mean merely any and every man's 
knowledge of them, but human experience in 
general, and that too of the phenomena both of 
changes actually occurring under the observ- 
er's inspection, and of those things that now, 
remaining unchanged, yet exhibit the marks 
of past changes ; for the laws of nature are to 
be deduced as well from those changes occur- 
ring in the past as from those occurring in the 
present. Our " experience," then, of the "laws 
of nature" is nothing else than our examina- 
tion of all the marks that we can anywhere 
possibly find, by ourselves and by other men, 
of the mode of operation of those laws, and our 
comparison of those marks with our deductions 
as to those laws. If we find that those marks, 
so far as we can judge, agree with those deduc- 
tions, we say that the laws of nature are uni- 
form, and the contrary if they are not. Now, 
we have seen that science, which is but the 
body which we possess of the accepted deduc- 
tions of the laws of nature, drawn as far as 
possible from universal "experience" — science 
itself tells us that there are " breaks " in nature 



Ch. 3j Competency and Credibility. S5 

where there must have been miracles. Our 
"experience" then of nature does admit of 
"exception" to her laws, and therefore no 
argument against miracles can be drawn from 
our alleged experience of their unbroken uni- 
formity. 3d. But if this view of what we must 
mean by our "experience " of the laws of nat- 
ure be incorrect, and we must limit that phrase 
to signify merely our individual experience, 
then it is not correct to say, in regard to the 
miracles narrated in the Bible, that they are 
contrary to our experience. For, in point of 
fact, our experience has never had any trial of 
them whatever, and can pronounce upon them 
really nothing, either favorable or unfavora- 
ble. As Paley says, "The narrative of a fact 
can be contrary to experience only when we or 
others, being present at the time and place, 
perceived that it did not exist; i. e., when it 
is contrary to our own or some one else's ex- 
perience of the particular fact alleged." If 
then we are to understand the above objection 
to mean that those miracles are contrary to our 
experience, the statement is plainly incorrect. 
2. The facts then, supposed to support this 
objection, do not exist as stated by Hume, and 
his argument, built on them, cannot be main- 
tained. It may, however, be said that the ob- 
jection still holds, inasmuch as our experience 



36 Positive Evidences. [Parti. 

of the uniformity of the laws of nature teaches 
us the extreme improbability of miracles, and 
consequently the insufficiency of testimony to 
support them. This is an a priori objection, 
drawn, not from our experience, for we have 
actually no experience in the matter, but from 
our ideas of what is and what is not improba- 
ble; and from those ideas it receives all its 
weight. But what may be improbable under 
some, and ordinary, circumstances, may become 
extremely probable under other and extraordi- 
nary circumstances. A man may act in one 
manner in the usual circumstances of life, but 
entirely different in uncommon occurrences. 
Pie may be content to communicate with dis- 
tant friends, in common times, for a long period, 
by the slower and ordinary method of a letter 
through the post; but on a great and pressing- 
emergency, there may be reason enough for 
him to employ the extraordinary means of a 
telegraphic dispatch ; and, then again, this 
having accomplished its purpose, he may re- 
lapse into his former more customary mode of 
communication. So God may ordinarily com- 
municate with man only by means of the works 
of nature around us; but a special occasion, 
the demands of which the ordinary means are 
insufficient to meet, may lead him to commu- 
nicate with us for a time, after an unusual and 



Ch. 3.] Competency and Credibility. 37 

extraordinary manner. It will be sufficient, 
then, to overcome this a priori, or antecedent, 
improbability of a divine revelation drawn 
from our experience of the uniformity of the 
laws of nature, by showing, on other grounds, 
its great probability ; and thereby, since mira- 
cles are not impossible, and since it is a gen- 
eral law of nature that the lower laws of 
nature, for wise and beneficent purposes, should 
suffer interference by higher powers ; and since 
there is, for such purposes, an antecedent proba- 
bility of a divine revelation, that it is therefore 
a priori probable that the usual course of nature 
should thus be interrupted, and miracles occur. 

That such a revelation is probable, we infer 
from the following considerations: 

1. The common opinion of men has judged 
it to be necessary. "That so many founders 
of religions should appeal to a supernatural 
revelation shows that nature is thought insuf- 
ficient in the general opinion of men," says 
Butler; and this view is fully proved by the 
acknowledgments of the most eminent think- 
ers, skeptics themselves as some of them are, 
both of modern and of ancient times. "The 
ultimate fruit of all philosophy is the observa- 
tion of human weakness and ignorance," says 
Hume. " The net results of natural theology," 
asserts Mill (Three Essays, etc.), "are these: 



38 Positive Evidences. [p ar t i. 

a Being of great but limited power, how or by 
what limited we cannot even conjecture, of 
great and perhaps unlimited intelligence, but 
perhaps also more limited than his power, who 
desires and pays some regard to the happiness 
of his creatures, but who seems to have other 
motives of action which he cares more for." 
And he finds also but little, if any, hope from 
the same source for the immortality of the soul. 
Such confessions, from the great modern leaders 
of skeptical thought, are surely enough to show 
the insufficiency of natural reason alone to give 
man any sure foundation for his hopes. Surely 
a revelation is needed to teach men the truth.* 

* " I would disturb no man's faith," says Coleridge ("Aids 
to Keflection," p. 179), " in the great articles of the (falsely 
so called) religion of nature. But before the man rejects, 
and calls on other men to reject, the revelations of the 
gospel and the religion of Christendom, I would have him 
place himself in the state and under all the privations of 
a Simonides, when, in the fortieth day of his meditations, 
the sage and philosophic poet abandoned the problem in 
despair, only to seriously consider whether a doctrine (t. e. } 
of immortality), of the truth of which a Socrates could 
obtain no other assurance than what he derived from his 
strong wish that it should be true, and which Plato found 
a mystery hard to discover, and, when discovered, commu- 
nicable only to the fewest of men, can, consistently with 
history or common sense, be classed among the articles, the 
belief of which is insured to all men by their mere com- 
mon sense." 



Ch. 3.] Competency and Credibility. 39 

And this was also the conclusion of the 
wisest and best of the ancients. " Plato be- 
gins his discourse concerning the gods and the 
generation of the worlds," says Home, "with 
the caution 'not to expect any thing beyond a 
likely conjecture concerning these things.'" 
Cicero, with all his vast learning, acuteness, 
and industry, found that he was unequal to the 
inquiry, and says: "If we had come into the 
world in such circumstances as that we could 
clearly and distinctly have perceived nature 
herself, and have been able in the course of our 
lives to follow her true and incorruptible direc- 
tions, this alone might have been sufficient ; but 
now nature has given us only some small sparks 
of right reason, which we so quickly extinguish 
with corrupt opinions and evil practices that 
the true light of nature nowhere appears" 
(Tusc. Quist. 3). And he acknowledges that 
" all these things are involved in deep dark- 
ness." And again, after enumerating the vari- 
ous opinions of philosophers as to the immortal- 
ity of the soul, he concludes : " Which of these 
opinions is true some god must tell us; which is 
most like truth is a hard question" (Id., 1). 
"We deny not," he says again, "that some- 
thing may be true, but we deny that it can be 
perceived so to be, for what have we certain 
concerning good and evil? ]STor for this are 



40 Positive Evidences. [Parti. 

we to be blamed, but nature, which has hidden 
the truth in the deep " (De. Nat. Deor. Lib. 1, 
n. 10, 11, and Acad. Qu. Lib. 2, n. 66, 120). 
Now Cicero, living as he did after the great 
philosophers of Greece, and thoroughly versed 
in their writings, and being himself a man of 
the finest powers of mind, is well entitled to 
represent the sum total of the results of those, 
the highest, exertions of the human intellect. 
Accordingly Gibbon, who will not be regarded 
as being misled through any partiality to Chris- 
tianity, shows from his writings the vanity of 
the speculations of philosophers in these mat- 
ters of such profound interest and concern to 
men. He says: "The writings of Cicero rep- 
resent in the most lively colors the ignorance, 
the errors, and the uncertainty of the ancient 
philosophers with regard to the immortality 
of the soul. When they are desirous of arm- 
ing their disciples against the fear of death, 
they inculcate as an obvious though melan- 
choly position, that the fatal stroke of our dis- 
solution releases us from the calamities of life, 
and that those can no longer suffer who no 
longer exist. Yet there were a few sages of 
Greece and Rome who had conceived a more 
exalted, and, in some respects, a juster idea 
of human nature ; though it must be confessed, 
that in the sublime inquiry, their reason had 



Ch. 3.] Competency and Credibility. 41 

often been guided by their imagination, and 
their imagination had been prompted by their 
vanity. When they viewed with complacency 
the extent of their own mental powers, . . . 
and when they reflected on the desire of fame 
which transported them into future ages far 
beyond the bounds of death and the grave, 
they were unwilling to confound themselves 
with the beasts of the field, or to suppose that 
a being, for whose dignity they entertained the 
most sincere admiration, could be limited to a 
spot of earth and to a few years of duration. 
With this favorable prepossession, they sum- 
moned to their aid the science, or rather the 
language, of metaphysics. They soon discov- 
ered tnat as none of the properties of matter 
will apply to the operations of the mind, the 
human soul must consequently be a substance 
distinct from the bod} 7 " — pure, simple, and 
spiritual, incapable of dissolution, and suscep- 
tible of a much higher degree of virtue and 
happiness after the release from its corporeal 
prison. From these specious and noble prin- 
ciples the philosophers who trod in the foot- 
steps of Plato deduced a very unjustifiable 
conclusion, since they asserted not only the 
future immortality but the past eternity of the 
human soul, s . . a doctrine thus removed 
beyond the senses and the experience of man- 



42 Positive Evidences. [Parti. 

kind might serve to amuse the leisure of a 
philosophic mind; or, in the silence of soli- 
tude, it might sometimes impart a ray of 
comfort to desponding virtue; but the faint 
impression which had been received in the 
school was soon obliterated by the commerce 
and business of active life. We are sufficient- 
ly acquainted with the eminent persons who 
nourished in the age of Cicero, and of the first 
Cassars, with their actions, their characters, 
and their motives, to be assured that their con- 
duct in this life was never regulated by any 
serious conviction of the rewards or punish- 
ments of a future state. At the bar, and in 
the senate of Rome, the ablest orators were 
not apprehensive of giving offense to their 
hearers by exposing that doctrine as an idle 
and extravagant opinion, which was rejected 
with contempt by every man of a liberal edu- 
• cation and understanding. 

" Since, therefore, the most sublime efforts of 
philosophy can extend no farther than feebly 
to point out the desire, the hope, or, at most, 
the probability, of a future state, there is noth- 
ing except a divine revelation that can ascer- 
tain the existence, and describe the condition, 
of the invisible country which is destined to 
receive the souls of men after their separation 
from the body." 



Ch. 3.] Competency and Credibility. 43 

Thus the testimony of Gibbon himself is in 
full support of our position. No words of ours 
could add to the force of this conclusion of his, 
in which he too not only most strongly asserts 
the utterly vain attempts of the highest human 
reason, but also remarkably declares, as the 
necessary inference therefrom, the absolute 
necessity of a divine revelation. 

2. This conclusion, Home shows (Introduc- 
tion, etc.), is confirmed by the darkness and 
confusion existing in general among men as to 
the most important doctrines. Plato (vide Lin- 
naeus), with many other ancient philosophers, 
held the eternity of matter, and Aristotle the 
eternity of the present world, both in matter 
and form. The Magians believed that there 
are two eternal principles — the one good, the 
other evil. Brahminism denies the individu- 
ality of the human soul, as also many of the 
Greek philosophers, together with the modern 
pantheists, and teaches that it is a part of God, 
and hence that all it does is right, and the 
greatest crime nothing but God's act. The 
immortality of the soul was considered very 
doubtful ; transmigration was taught by some ; 
reabsorption into the divine essence is believed 
in by Buddhists; Pliny says "the soul and 
body have no more sense after death than be- 
fore we were born ; " Caesar: "Beyond death 



44 Positive Evidences. [Parti. 

there is place neither for care nor joy." " The 
Hindoos believe in one God — so completely 
abstracted, however, in his own essence that 
in this state he is emphatically the ' Unknown/ 
and consequently the object neither of hope 
nor fear ; he is even destitute of intelligence, 
and remains in a state of profound repose. . . 
To him, however, the Hindoos erect no altars. 
The objects of their adoration commence with 
the triad — Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva — which 
represent the almighty powers of Creation, 
Preservation, and Destruction. As to the prov- 
idence of God, the Epicureans held that 'what 
was blessed and immortal gave neither any 
trouble to itself nor to others ; ' Aristotle, that 
God resides in the celestial sphere, and ob- 
serves nothing, and cares for nothing, beyond 
himself; Plato, that 'God, fortune, and oppor- 
tunity, govern all the affairs of men' (De Legg., 
book 4) ; and polytheism allowed one god to be 
against men because another was favorable to 
them ; farther, the Spartans, by law, allowed 
adultery in certain cases, and Plutarch, in his 
Life of Lycurgus, commends it. Plato says, 
1 He may lie who knows how to do it in a fit 
season,' and, with the Stoics, made a Jesuitical 
distinction between lying with the lips and in 
the mind ; while Menander says, 'A lie is better 
than a hurtful truth.'" 



Ch. 3.] Competency and Credibility. 45 

3. This need of a divine revelation is farther 
shown by the corruptness of the morals which 
has always prevailed wherever the Bible has 
been unknown, and the utter incapacity of 
heathen philosophy or religion to restrain it. 
" Do you think," exclaims Cicero, speaking of 
the ancient philosophers and their teachings, 
"that these things had any influence upon the 
men, a few only excepted, who thought, and 
wrote, and disputed, about them? Who is 
there of all the philosophers whose mind, life, 
and manners, were conformable to right rea- 
son ? Who ever made his philosophy the law 
and rule of his life, and not a mere show of his 
wit and parts? Who observed his own in- 
structions, and lived in obedience to his own 
precepts ? * On the contrary, many of them 
were slaves to filthy lusts, many to pride, many 
to covetousness" (Tusc. Quist. 2). 

But not only was this the case as to the phi- 
losophers of Greece and Rome, and their fol- 
lowers — the sad helplessness into which the 

* Who, indeed, ever did but Jesus Christ ? The whole of 
this is a most important witness to his vast superiority to all 
others of the wisest of mankind. He taught by far the most 
sublime standard of virtue, and yet so perfectly exemplified 
it, under the most trying circumstances, in his character and 
life, that not one of his many enemies, throughout eighteen 
centuries, has ever been able to point out the smallest stain 
on his spotless robe of righteousness. 



46 Positive Evidences. [Part I. 

human family were plunged is even more strik- 
ingly shown by the effect of their religious sys- 
tems. "For you may imagine," writes Bacon 
("Essays on Unity in Religion"), "what kind 
of faith theirs was, when the chief doctors and 
fathers of their Church were the poets." Ac- 
cordingly, as Home again shows (Intro., Vol. 
I., Ch. 1, 5), in all the heathen world, in all 
ages, there have prevailed not only the greatest 
uncertainty, frequent absurdities, and much in- 
completeness, but also, in every system, some- 
thing mean, selfish, or sensual. Among the 
ancient heathens the worship of one God was 
unknown. There were deities that presided 
over every distinct nation, city, town, grove, 
river, and fountain. Temples and fanes were 
erected to all the passions, diseases, fears, and 
evils, to which mankind were subject. Accord- 
ingly these divinities were — some vindictive 
and sanguinary; others jealous, wrathful, or 
deceitful; most unchaste, adulterous, and in- 
cestuous. Thus their rites were often absurd, 
licentious, and cruel. Prostitution was system- 
atically annexed to various pagan temples, and 
in some countries was even made compulsory 
upon the females ; and other impurities were 
solemnly practiced in their temples and in pub- 
lic, at the very thought of which our minds re- 
volt. Numbers of men were killed in the bloody 



Ch. 3.] Competency and Credibility. 47 

sports instituted in honor of their deities, and 
human sacrifices, including tender infants, were 
in some countries offered to propitiate them. 
With few exceptions, they never taught the 
duty of loving our enemies and forgiving inju- 
ries, but that revenge was lawful and commend- 
able. Suicide was regarded as the strongest 
mark of heroism ; theft was permitted both in 
Egypt and Sparta; abortion was allowed by 
Aristotle in certain cases, and the exposure of 
infants by Plato. Among the Romans, masters 
might put their slaves to death at pleasure ; for 
the relief of the poor and destitute no provision 
was made ; common swearing was committed 
by their best moralists — as, e. g.. Socrates, Plato, 
and Seneca; and the unlawful gratification of 
the sensual appetites was openly taught and al- 
lowed ; and even in those particulars in which 
the best and wisest of their philosophers did 
teach good principles, they were forced to com- 
plain that they found the understandings of 
men so dark and beclouded, their wills so bi- 
ased and inclined to evil, their passions so out- 
rageous and rebellious — in short, human nat- 
ure so strangely corrupted and diseased by 
some cause of which they were ignorant, that 
they could not effect any great change in the 
characters and lives of any considerable num- 
ber of men. 



48 Positive Evidences. [Parti. 

If we turn from ancient to modern heathen- 
dom, we see a spectacle no less melancholy. 
Among savage tribes the most abject idolatry, 
in the worship of the heavenly bodies, animals, 
serpents, and dumb idols, everywhere prevail, 
as also sorcery and magic ; while polygamy, 
divorce, and infanticide, together with the 
practice of the grossest vices, are universal. 
Among the most enlightened of modern hea- 
then nations we find it much the same. In 
China all ranks, from the emperor downward, 
are full of absurd superstitions, and worship 
gods celestial, terrestrial, and subterraneous — 
gods of the hills, the valleys, the shop, and the 
kitchen. Altars are erected on the hills and in 
the groves, and idols are set up at the corners 
of the streets, on the sides of the road, on the 
banks of canals, and in the boats. Astrology, 
divination, and necromancy, everywhere pre- 
vail. The worship of dead ancestors is widely 
prevalent. In accordance with their religion, 
their general character is well known to be 
that of fraud, lying, and hypocrisy. Polyga- 
my also universally exists, as well as the prac- 
tice of exposing infants, thousands of whom die 
annually from this cause. In India the poly- 
theism of the Hindoos is of the grossest kind, 
not fewer than three hundred and thirty mill- 
ion deities claiming adoration. Rites the most 



Ch. 3.] Competency and Credibility. 49 

impure, penances the most toilsome, almost 
innumerable modes of self-torture, the burn- 
ing or burying of widows, infanticide, sub- 
mersion of the sick and the dying in the 
Ganges, self-immolation — these and such 
like are the horrid practices of their idolatry. 
JS'or is the case much different among the 
Mohammedans. Fierceness, rapacity, cruel- 
ty, polygamy, and falsehood, mark their char- 
acter. 

Such has ever been and still is the condition 
of all nations without Christianity. To such 
a state has man ever come without a revela- 
tion. It cannot be argued that it was for the 
lack of intellectual ability that these nations 
fell into such corruptions. Some of them were 
most successful in all other intellectual exer- 
tions, and have never been surpassed, if ever 
equaled, in producing great works of art and 
literature, or of achieving distinction in poli- 
tics or war. JSTo ; it was not because their 
intellects were inferior, but only because, at 
its best, the mind of man is incapable of form- 
ing any adequate system of religion, that Plato 
and Aristotle, with all the rest of the Greeks 
and Romans, produced such imperfect and in- 
sufficient schemes. This truth is still farther 
shown by the speculations of modern skeptical 
philosophers, who, nevertheless, have enjoyed 
3 



50 Positive Evidences. [p ar t I. 

the advantages of the knowledge of the truth 
revealed to us by the Scriptures. Those spec- 
ulations are often contradictory and discordant 
among themselves, and no less also with true 
reason and common sense. Bolingbroke taught 
that all morality was resolvable into self-love, 
and that ambition, sensuality, and avarice, 
may be lawfully gratified if they may be safely 
gratified. Hume maintained that self-denial 
and humility are not virtues, but useless and 
mischievous ; that adultery must be practiced 
if men would obtain all the advantages of life, 
and that if it were generally practiced it would 
in time cease to be scandalous, and by degrees 
be thought to be no crime. Both Voltaire and 
Helvetius advocated the most unlimited gratifi- 
cation of the sensual appetites ; and Rousseau, 
according to his own printed " Confessions," 
was a debauched profligate, who made his feel- 
ings the only standard of right. "All that I 
feel to be right is right," he says; "whatever 
I feel to be wrong is wrong." And what the 
character of the French Revolution was under 
the direction of men entertaining similar opin- 
ions, let history tell as a witness of what men 
form for themselves when left to themselves. 
And. it would be with us and our nation as 
with Greece and Rome, as with China, and 
India, and with infidel France, were we de- 



Ch. 3.] Competency and Credibility. 51 

privecl of Christianity ; for we are, by nature, 
no better than they. Thus we behold our need 
of a revelation from Gocl. 

4. Farther, such need must ever continue. 
From the very nature of the case man is una- 
ble to discover fully, by the light of nature, 
what he needs. (1) Vide "Watson's Insti- 
tutes." The quality of moral actions must 
be presumed to be matter of revelation from 
God. Creation implies government, govern- 
ment implies law, and law must be given by 
revelation. This may be through nature, or 
through nature and direct revelation also. 
The latter alone is sufficient, since, 1st. There 
are many duties not clearly taught by nature 
alone. For instance, temperance is not taught, 
except it be by the loss of health, etc. ; and 
therefore we should suppose that it was not 
required of those whose health, etc., is not 
injured thereby, and therefore we should have 
one rule for one class and another rule for an- 
other. And so, likewise, with justice, since 
injustice goes often unpunished in this life; 
and with benevolence, since nature is full of 
rigor. Besides, there is nothing to show us 
that it is our duty to Avorship Gocl, nor that he 
may be approached in prayer, nor that there 
is a future state of rewards and punishments, 
nor, clearly, that man is immortal, nor that 



52 Positive Evidences. [Part I. 

there is any pardon for sin. 2d. But even 
were nature sufficient, our reason is insuffi- 
cient; for, at the best, reason is very imper- 
fect. Again, men's reasons greatly differ, and 
hence there would be diverse rules. Again, 
men are not sufficiently contemplative, nor 
sufficiently honest, for such inquiries. And 
still farther, if the truth were once found, and 
intellectual men appointed to teach it, it would 
yet lack the authority of a divine revelation, 
and so be powerless. (2) Vide "Wayland's 
Moral Science." Conscience is imperfect. 1st. 
Unassisted, it does not discover many obliga- 
tions man is under, both to God and to his 
fellow-man, as is fully proved by the failures 
to do so by the wisest and best of the ancients. 
2d. In such as he does discover and acknowl- 
edge, man frequently errs as to the mode in 
which they are to be discharged, as, for instance, 
when he feels, as has often been the case, his 
obligations to God, but thinks he may dis- 
charge them by offering human sacrifices. 3d. 
When both his duty and the manner of dis- 
charging them are known, conscience is yet 
often too obtuse or too weak, as we all know, 
to make men feel them, and impel men to a 
discharge of them. We therefore need addi- 
tional means of securing both the knowledge 
and the enforcement of our duties to those 



Ch. 3.] Competency and Credibility. 53 

which conscience, imperfect as we thus see 
that it is, can give. 

5. In nature, God's revelation of himself 
is imperfect, and therefore our knowledge of 
what is due him, as well as of his will toward 
us, is imperfect. Nature does indeed reveal 
his existence, his power and wisdom, and his 
established principle of order, but it reveals : 

(1) Imperfectly his disposition of benevolence. 

(2) And nothing whatever of his character of 
holiness, excej)t indeed it may be very imper- 
fectly reflected from the moral character of 
his creature, man. (3) And if we should ar- 
rive at a conception of his holiness, there is 
yet no power revealed in nature by which sin 
may be overcome within us. Therefore, both 
from the imperfection of the knowledge given 
by nature, and from its total lack of moral 
power to aid us in carrying that knowledge 
into action, nature is insufficient, and a farther 
revelation is needed from God, manifesting his 
moral and spiritual nature in its perfection, 
and possessed of power over the human heart 
to frame it for right action. " In fine," we may 
well conclude with Paley, " I deem it unneces- 
sary to prove that mankind stood in need of a 
revelation, because I have met with no serious 
person who thinks that even under the Chris- 
tian revelation we have too much light." 



54 Positive Evidences. [Parti. 

From the very nature of the case, then, we 
perceive the total inadequacy of nature alone 
to suffice for the moral necessities of man, and 
we conclude the probability of a farther and 
direct revelation for their supply, at the hands 
of that wise and benevolent Creator and Pre- 
server, who, in nature, has so bounteously and 
variously provided for his physical need and 
joy. This conclusion, we have seen, is con- 
firmed by the general opinion of men, that such 
a revelation was necessary, as also by the great- 
est thinkers that have lived. It is farther 
exhibited in the utter confusion as to the most 
important doctrines that has always prevailed 
in the absence of such a revelation. And last- 
ly, we have seen how much it is demanded by 
the dark view of the moral state of the whole 
world, in all times, without revelation. We 
claim, then, from this survey, that any just 
a priori improbability that Hume's objection 
may be thought to bring against revelation, 
because of the uniformity of the laws of nat- 
ure and the improbability of miracle, is more 
than counterbalanced by this other, strong, 
opposing a priori improbability that this im- 
perative need of man should never be supplied 
by the great and good God. While we con- 
cede such a general uniformity of nature, yet, 
remembering that God has not put it out of 



Ch. 3.] Competency and Credibility. 55 

his own power to interfere with nature, and 
directly control her, and remembering too that 
science itself teaches us that several times, 
on extraordinary occasions — in creation, in the 
production of life, and in the bringing forth 
of man — he has so interfered for beneficent 
purposes, we must conclude that, for such high 
ends as we have pointed out, he would once 
more so interfere in our behalf, and work even 
miracles to give us a revelation of himself, of 
our destiny, and of his will. 

6. Hume's objection is thus fallacious in the 
incorrectness of its statement of the facts. It 
is fallacious too in not recognizing the ante- 
cedent probability of a revelation as opposing 
the a priori improbability of a miracle. It is, 
thirdly, fallacious in its argument itself, in that 
it really begs the question in dispute. For, 
by saying that "the proof against a miracle 
is as entire as any argument from experience 
can be," etc., he can surely mean nothing less 
than that a miracle is something wholly un- 
known to all human experience, and that the 
laws of nature have been always uniform. This 
is the whole point of his argument. But this 
is the very point in dispute. We claim that, 
even as it is recorded in the Bible, many thou- 
sands, in different countries and ages, and some- 
times through a lon°' series of vears — from the 



56 Positive Evidences. [p ar t I. 

passage of the Reel Sea by the Israelites, and 
their daily supply of manna for forty years in 
the wilderness, to the feeding of the thousands 
by Christ, and afterward — miracles were open- 
ly witnessed by multitudes of people. If the 
Bible account is doubted, or alleged to be false, 
that is another and a prior question, which 
must be settled by showing, on other grounds, 
that the evidence for their truth is insufficient, 
contradictory, or disproved by other evidence. 
But we cannot say the Bible is false, simply 
because it tells of the occurrence of miracles, 
and miracles are impossible, and then argue 
that miracles are impossible, because we are 
nowhere credibly told of their occurrence. The 
latter is the argument of Hume, given with- 
out any previous impeachment on extraneous 
grounds of the credibility of the Scripture 
narrative. His position, then, that miracles 
are unknown to human experience, really begs 
the very point at issue — a point which, like all 
questions of fact, can only be finally settled by 
a full and impartial consideration of the tes- 
timony for or against, not by abstract reason- 
ing of what is and what is not antecedently 
probable. 

7. Finally, it may be safely claimed, in op- 
position to the position taken in the objection, 
that there is no miracle so great but that hu- 



Ch. 3.] Competency and Credibility. 57 

man testimony may establish it. Our minds 
are so formed that their assent is absolutely 
compelled to be given whenever a certain 
amount and kind of evidence have been given. 
"The evidence," as Campbell says, "arising 
from human testimony, in point of fact, is not 
altogether derived from experience, but, on 
the contrary, our doubt about testimony arises 
from experience. In reality, the constitution 
of our nature obliges us to believe the testimony 
of thousands of our fellow-men — and these, too, 
men of strict integrity, swayed by no motives 
of ambition or interest, and governed by the 
principles of common sense — of things to which 
they were themselves the actual witnesses." 
"If twelve men, in short," as Paley shows, 
"should testify to the same miraculous fact, 
and continue to repeat it, though at the risk of 
life, through many years, separate and apart, 
in opposition to many keen and watchful op- 
ponents, and before various tribunals of justice, 
and if their testimony should nevertheless per- 
fectly agree, and be corroborated by all the 
other witnesses in the case, and by all the at- 
tendant circumstances discoverable, it maybe 
truly said that the human mind could not re- 
sist such testimony." 

Whether Christianity has such testimony to 
its truth, we will hereafter discuss. We now 



58 Positive Evidences. [Parti. 

claim that it has been shown that miracles, 
and consequently a revelation, may be estab- 
lished by human testimony. The objection 
which denies it is shown to be without force — 
nay, a strong antecedent probability is seen to 
exist in its favor ; and we therefore bring this 
stage of our inquiry to a close with the affirma- 
tion of the Competency of Evidence in general 
to prove Miracles, and therefore to establish 
the fact of a revelation given of God. 



Ch. 4.] Competency and Credibility. 59 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE COMPETENCY OF THE EVIDENCE — II. PROB- 
ABLE EVIDENCE IS SUFFICIENT TO PROVE A 
REVELATION. 

The next possible objection to the Christian 
Evidences is that they consist only of proba- 
ble, and not demonstrative, evidence, and are 
therefore insufficient. This objection asserts 
that, inasmuch as the best human testimony is 
liable to error, revelation is not proved there- 
by, beyond the possibility of a doubt, and con- 
sequently the evidence is inadequate. This 
brings us to consider the Competency of the 
Evidence in its second point— namely, the Suf- 
ficiency of Probable Evidence to Prove a Rev- 
elation. 

It is sufficient, because it is unreasonable 
and absurd to require any greater than prob- 
able evidence of the facts of the Christian re- 
ligion. Whately has remarked, in his Anno- 
tations on Bacon's Essays, that the "craving 
for infallibility in religious matters is a fruitful 
cause of atheism. Some, because they think 
that revelation is not such as it is reasonable 
and proper for God to bestow, choose to reject 



60 Positive Evidences. [p ar t I. 

it, thus claiming for themselves infallibility of 
judgment as to what is reasonable and proper, 
and judging God; others, because they think 
some system of theology — some particular in- 
terpretation of the Bible — to be wrong, reject 
the Bible itself with the theological system — 
as if the possession of a divine revelation in- 
sured the presence also of an infallible inter- 
preter." In like manner others, as unreason- 
ably and absurdly, reject Christianity because 
its evidences are probable only, and not de- 
monstrative — that is, that it establishes its 
facts only beyond a reasonable doubt, but not 
beyond all possibility of objection by their own 
minds. In opposition to such a notion, we as- 
sert that probable evidence is alone applicable 
to the case in hand. Demonstrative evidence 
is totally inapplicable to the establishment not 
only of the facts of Christianity, but to that of 
any facts whatever. 

1. Demonstrative evidence consists solely in 
that evidence which arises from our reasoning 
from primary axioms of abstract principles to 
other abstract truths. Wholly abstract, there- 
fore, and disconnected with any matter of fact, 
it is limited in its application entirely to the re- 
lations of number and quantity, and capable of 
establishing mathematical truth alone. "The 
field of demonstration," says Reid ("Intellect- 



Ch. 4.] Competency and Credibility. 61 

ual Powers of Man "), " is necessary truth ; the 
field of probable reasoning is contingent truth 
— i. e., not what necessarily must be at all times, 
but what is, or was, or shall be. . . . The 
strength of probable reasoning, for the most 
part, depends not upon any one argument, but 
upon many which unite their force, and lead to 
the same conclusion. Any one of them by it- 
self would be insufficient to convince, but the 
whole taken together may have a force that is 
irresistible; so that to desire more evidence 
would be absurd. "Would any man seek new 
arguments to prove that there were such per- 
sons as King Charles I. and Oliver Cromwell ? 
Such evidence may be compared to a rope 
made up of many slender filaments twisted 
together. The rope has strength more than 
sufficient to bear the stress laid upon it, though 
no one of the filaments of which it is composed 
would be sufficient for it." Such are the prin- 
ciples of evidence laid down by Reicl the phi- 
losopher, in his great work on the human mind, 
as the rules that must govern in all our decis- 
ions. In addition, we must remember that at 
its besj; the human mind is not infallible, and 
therefore all its knowledge whatsoever is liable 
to error — that none of its conclusions are ever 
really put beyond the possibility of a doubt. 
The very fact that evidence is necessary to us 



62 Positive Evidences. [p ar t i. 

in order to establish a truth shows that we are 
beings of limited powers. {Vide Essay, by 
the Hon. W. E. Gladstone, Fortnightly Review, 
May, 1879, on "Probability as the Guide of 
Conduct.") If we were not, we should be able 
to recognize whatever is true immediately, 
without the aid of intermediate evidence ; but 
if our powers are limited, they are always lia- 
ble to make mistake. Not that they will nec- 
essarily err. A being of the most limited 
powers, while always liable to error, may yet 
always hit the truth ; and therefore it is that 
we are still capable of attaining to a real 
knowledge of the truth, though we are falli- 
ble, and therefore that probable evidence may 
form a valid ground for confidence in our con- 
clusions. But still there remains the fact that 
all our mental faculties are in themselves im- 
perfect ; their operations also, and their acts, 
are never infallible, and therefore their conclu- 
sions are always open to some degree of doubt. 
The demand, then, that Christian Evidences 
should be free from all doubt is unreasonable 
and absurd. 

2. But not only are such the conclusions of 
abstract reasoning, but these are the principles 
that are practically and constantly followed in 
trials by our judicial tribunals. Greenleaf, the 
standard legal authority on the subject, in his 



Ch. 4.] Competency and Credibility. C3 

work "On Evidence," in his chapter, in vol. 1, 
on the "Nature and Principles of Evidence" 
(Italics ours), says: "None but mathematical 
truth is susceptible of that high degree of evi- 
dence called demonstration which excludes all 
possibility of error. Matters of fact are proved 
by moral evidence alone ; by which is meant not 
only that kind of evidence which is employed 
on subjects connected with moral conduct, but 
all the evidence which is not obtained either 
from intuition or demonstration. In the ordi- 
nary affairs of life we do not require demon- 
strative evidence, because it is inconsistent 
with the nature of the subject, and to insist 
upon it would be to be unreasonable and ab- 
surd. The most that can be affirmed of such 
things is that there is no reasonable doubt con- 
cerning them. The true question, therefore, in 
trials of fact is not whether it is possible that the 
testimony may be false, but whether there is a suffi- 
cient probability of its truth — that is, whether the 
facts are shown by competent and satisfactory 
evidence. Things established by competent 
and satisfactory evidence are said to be proved. 
... It is assumed (i. e., by objectors to this 
position) that all that men know is clue to per- 
ception and reflection. But the knowledge ac- 
quired by an individual through his own per- 
ception and reflection is but a small part of 



64 Positive Evidences. [p ar t i. 

what he possesses, much of what we are content 
to regard and act upon as knowledge having 
been acquired through others. Indeed, if ma n 
is to believe only upon his own personal expe- 
rience, the world can neither be governed nor 
improved, and society must remain in the state 
in which it was left by the first generation 
of men. The disposition to believe may be 
termed instinctive. It is true that, in receiv- 
ing the testimony of others, we are much influ- 
enced by its accordance with facts previously 
known or believed, and this constitutes what 
is termed its probability. Statements thus 
probable are received upon evidence much 
less cogent than we require for the belief of 
those which do not accord with our previous 
knowledge. Nevertheless, we should beware 
of distrusting all others. While unbounded 
credulity is the attribute of weak minds, un- 
limited skepticism belongs only to those who 
make their own knowledge and observation 
the exclusive standard of probability. Thus 
the King of Siam rejected the testimony of the 
Dutch embassador, that in his country water 
was sometimes congealed into a solid mass. 
Skeptics, inconsistently enough with their own 
principles, } r et true to the nature of man, con- 
tinue to receive a large portion of their knowl- 
edge upon testimony not derived from their 



Ch. 4.] Competency and Credibility. 65 

own experience, but from that of other men, 
even when it is at variance with much of their 
own personal observation. Thus the testimo- 
ny of the historian is' received with confidence 
in regard to the occurrences of ancient times ; 
that of the naturalist and traveler, in regard to 
the natural history and civil condition of other 
countries ; that of the astronomer, respecting 
the heavenly bodies — facts which, upon the 
narrow basis of his own 'firm and unalterable 
experience,' upon which Mr. Hume so much 
relies, he would be bound to reject as wholly 
unworthy of belief." 

Such are the principles constantly followed, 
in decisions made as to matters of fact, in our 
courts of justice. They are reasonably to be 
taken as rules which, having been settled by 
the wisest jurists, through centuries of dis- 
cussion, are proper to guide us in the forma- 
tion of our opinion as to questions of fact. 
Demonstrative evidence is by them utterly 
excluded. Demonstrative evidence, then, can- 
not be reasonably demanded of the truth of 
the facts of the Christian religion. Christian- 
ity asks nothing more than that her claims 
be subjected to the ordinary tests established 
for the ascertainment of facts. Those who 
require that they shall be proved by demon- 
strative evidence are unreasonable in the hi°\h- 



66 Positive Evidences. [Parti. 

est extreme, and their demand is wholly ab- 
surd. 

3. Farther still, science also, in whose name 
the demand for demonstrative evidence is 
sometimes brought, follows the same princi- 
ples ; for the truth of the laws of nature 
also is dependent on human testimony. The 
facts from which those laws are deduced — e. g., 
the observations of astronomy, botany, phys- 
ics, etc. — for much the greater part can be 
furnished by others only, and not perceived 
individually by that one (e. g., Newton) who 
deduces from them those laws. 

Moreover, since no fact whatever can be 
proved to exist by demonstrative evidence 
as is a mathematical problem, the facts upon 
which science herself, infallible as she is sup- 
posed to be, builds her deductions, are also 
liable to be mistaken; for whether obtained 
through the use of the microscope, or of chem- 
ical experiment, etc., they are obtained only 
by observation and experiment, and therefore 
are all established by no more than probable 
evidence, and liable to be erroneous, and to 
lead to erroneous conclusions. The constant 
conflict in the testimony of the most scientific 
experts, given in judicial cases, proves this. 
After having had the best opportunities of ex- 
amination, and using the best instruments and 



Ch. 4.] Competency and Credibility. 67 

chemicals, and with their professional reputa- 
tion at stake, the leading representatives of 
their several professions will yet usually come 
into court, after examining the same spot of 
blood, or the same body, and, instead of testi- 
fying alike, two or three will swear positively 
that the blood in question is human blood, or 
the body contains poison, while as many others 
will swear as positively directly to the con- 
trary.* 

Accordingly Jevous, an acknowledged au- 
thority on the subject ("Principles of Science," 
vol. i, pp. 244, 271, et seq.), lays down the fol- 
lowing: "I conceive that it is impossible even 
to expound the principles and motives of in- 
duction, as applied to natural phenomena, in 
a sound manner, without resting them upon 
the theory of probability. Perfect knowledge 
alone can give certainty, and in nature perfect 

* Thus in a case cited in 4 American Law Journal, 625, 
on a question of forgery of a signature, among other con- 
flicts of testimony between men of the highest scientific 
authority, in examining whether "under the ink of the 
disputed signature the microscope brought to light marks 
of tracing," Dr. Charles T. Jackson, a " specialist in this 
line of extraordinary skill and reputation, and Prof. Hors- 
ford, well known for his accomplishments in the same line, 
backed by other experts of distinction," swore positively 
that it did, and Profs. Agassiz and Oliver Wendell Holmes 
that it did not. 



68 Positive Evidences. [Parti. 

knowledge would be infinite knowledge, which 
is clearly beyond our capacities. We have 
therefore to content ourselves with partial 
knowledge — knowledge mingled with igno- 
rance, and producing doubt. . . . We can 
never recur too often to the truth, that our 
knowledge of the laws and future events of the 
external world is only probable. . . . What- 
ever feeling is actually present to the mind is 
certainly known to that mind. If I see blue 
sky, I may be quite sure that I do experience 
the sensation of blueness. ... In the sec- 
ond place, we may have certainty of inference. 
The first axioms of Euclid are certainly true, 
and whatever truth there is in the 
premises I can certainly embody in their di- 
rect logical result. . . . But I never can be 
quite sure that two colors are exactly alike, 
that two magnitudes are exactly equal, or that 
two bodies, whatsoever, are identical, even in 
their apparent relations. . . . Inferences 
which we draw concerning natural objects are 
never certain, except in a hypothetical point 
of view." 

Science too, then, must rest her whole sys- 
tem upon the very same kind of evidence as 
supports revelation ; and Christianity, to judge 
whose claims she has by some of her followers 
been arrogantly claimed to be the supreme 



Ch. 4.] Competency and Credibility. 69 

arbiter, is bound to confront her, on her own 
ground, with equal support of truth. Proba- 
ble evidence is, and can be, the only ground 
of confidence in each, as it is, and alone can 
be, of all our knowledge derived from matters 
of fact. 

4. The speculative reasoning then of philos- 
ophers, the practical administration of justice 
in the courts, and the deductive reasonings of 
science, thus unite in acknowledging probable 
evidence sufficient to decide matters of fact. 
We adduce, finally, the course of daily, ordi- 
nary life, as showing by the constant conduct 
of men their real opinion of its sufficiency to 
decide our actions in matters pertaining to this 
life, and we claim therefore that it should also 
decide in the same way our action in respect 
to religion. "Probable evidence, in its very 
nature, affords but an imperfect kind of infor- 
mation, but to us is the very guide of life, 
. ' . . but being often repeated, will amount 
even to moral certainty — as, e. g., the ebb and 
flow of the tide. . . . It is thought by some 
that if the evidence of revelation appears 
doubtful, this itself turns into a positive argu- 
ment against it ; . . . [whereas], in questions 
of difficulty, if there appears, on the whole, a 
greater presumption on one side than on the 
other, this determines the question, and lays us 



70 Positive Evidences. [p ar t I. 

under an absolute obligation to act upon that 
presumption. Nay, in questions of great con- 
sequence, a reasonable man will act upon pre- 
sumptions such as amount to no more than to 
show that one side is as credible as another, 
as in numberless cases in the common pursuits 
of life, where a man would be thought, in a 
literal sense, distracted, who would not act, 
and with great application too, not only upon 
an even chance, but upon much less (e. g., 
where health, fortune, or life, are at stake). 
. . . Besides, the evidence of religion not 
appearing obvious (i. e., the fact that the evi- 
dence of religion may not seem entirely suffi- 
cient to them at first sight), may be part of 
some men's trial, and give scope for a virtu- 
ous exercise or vicious neglect of the under- 
standing in examining or not examining into it. 
The man who had a right disposition, such as 
would lead him to follow the precepts of relig- 
ion, if proved to be true, would be led, were 
he unconvinced, seriously to consider its evi- 
dence. Negligence before conviction is as really 
guilty as disobedience afterward. And even 
doubtful evidence puts men in a state of pro- 
bation. ... If a man were in doubt whether 
his entire temporal blessings did not come 
from a certain person, he could not consider 
himself in the same situation with regard to 



Ch. 4.] Competency and Credibility. 71 

such person as if lie had no [such] doubt; 
but there would be required from him rever- 
ence, careful consideration, openness to farther 
light and conviction. Doubt as much implies 
some evidence as belief a higher degree of it, 
and certainty a higher degree still. For, 
when we say there is an even chance, there is 
more evidence for either side of the question 
than there is for the truth of some idea that 
has come at random into the mind. But a 
disregard of even the lower degrees of evi- 
dence in our practice proves unfairness, and, 
in religion, corruptness of heart." — Butler's 
Analogy. 

That probability is thus necessarily the very 
guide of life is not a conclusion held by Chris- 
tians only, nor has it been used only to estab- 
lish the claims of religion. Voltaire, in an 
essay upon judicial inquiries, says: "Almost 
all of human life turns upon probabilities. 
All that is not demonstrated to the eyes, or 
recognized as true by those clearly interested 
to deny, is at most only probable. . . . Un- 
certainty being almost always the lot of man, 
you will determine very seldom, if you expect 
a demonstration. In the meantime an opinion 
must be formed, and it should not be formed 
at random. It is then necessary to our feeble 
nature, blind, always subject to error, to study 



72 Positive Evidences. [Parti. 

the probabilities with as much care as we learn 
arithmetic and geometry."* 

Christianity, therefore, in possessing prob- 
able evidence, has, so far as its kind is con- 
cerned, all the evidence that we do or can 
require in our decisions in all — the most ordi- 
nary as well as the gravest — affairs of life. It 
has all that is possible to be applied to the 
ascertainment of matters of fact, all that is 
ever resorted to in such ascertainment in courts 
of law, and all that natural science can ever 
pretend to have in her acquirements of data 
necessary to her deductive conclusions. That 
evidence, then, is competent to establish her 
claims, and it is unreasonable and absurd to 
demand demonstrative evidence, or evidence 
concerning which there can be imagined no 
possible doubt. The denial of the competency 
of probable evidence, in matters of fact, to 

* The original is as follows : " Presque toute le vie hu- 
mane roule sur des probability. Tout ce qui n'est pas 
demontre aux yeux, ou reconnu pour vrai par les parties 
evidemment interressees a le nier n'est tout au plus que 
probable. . . . L'incertitude etant presque toujours le 
partage de Thornine, vous determineriez tres-rarement, si 
vous attendiez une demonstration. Cependant il faut pren- 
dre un parti ; et il ne faut pas le prendre au hasard. II 
est done necessaire a notre nature faible, aveugle, toujours 
sujette a l'erreur, d'etudier les probability avec autant de 
soin, que nous apprenous l'arithmetique et la geometric" 



Ch. 4.] Competency and Credibility. 73 

command our belief, and consequently secure 
our obedience, must logically lead to the denial 
of the establishment of every fact, and render 
human knowledge impossible. Accordingly, 
to such a conclusion does Hume, the great ob- 
jector to the testimony offered by Christianity, 
come. He concludes (" Treatise of Human 
Nature," Book L, Part 4, Sec. 1)— first, that 
all that is called human knowledge is only 
probability ; and, secondly, that this probabil- 
ity, when duly examined, evanishes by degrees, 
and leaves at last no evidence at all ; so that 
in the issue there is no ground to believe any 
one proposition rather than its contrary, and 
"all those are certainly fools who reason, or 
believe any thing." To such an extremity of 
universal skepticism must the denial of the 
competency of probable evidence logically lead, 
and actually often does lead, in more cases than 
Hume's. But surery such a conclusion as this 
is not the highest result of human reason, or 
the best for human interests. " He who makes 
wisdom," says Augustin (as quoted by Yan 
Oosterzee), "consist in abstinence from all as- 
sent, makes it merely the confession of igno- 
rance, and identifies it with nullity." Our 
reason cannot agree with this. We must be- 
lieve that knowledge is attainable by man, 
and therefore that to the attainment of that 
4 



74 Positive Evidences. [p ar t I. 

knowledge evidence that is probable is suffi- 
cient. 

Concluding, then, that the evidence, in all its 
aspects, is in its nature wholly competent, we 
still have to show, in order to establish its en- 
tire admissibility, and, so far as the truth of 
the facts is concerned, its worthiness for our 
acceptance — leaving their weight to be after- 
ward estimated — that the record of those facts, 
as contained in the New Testament Scriptures, 
is a, true account, and is neither forged nor fal- 
sified. This topic comprises what is called the 
Authenticity of the Evidence, and will form the 
subject of the following chapter. 



Ch. 5.] Competency and Credibility. 75 



CHAPTER V. 

THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE EVIDENCE. 

The next question that claims our attention 
is that of the trustworthiness, or authenticity, 
of the evidence offered. This relates merely 
to the truth of the Grospel history, and, with- 
out considering their weight, examines only 
whether the occurrences related in that his- 
tory, and on which Christianity is founded, are 
truly related, and actually took place. This 
will form the last question in our consideration 
of the Admissibility of the Evidence ; and, if 
its examination concludes in favor of the truth 
of that record — the competency of evidence in 
general being already established — we must 
admit that the evidence that therein is actu- 
ally offered is in itself genuine and trustwor- 
thy, and of a nature proper to be used for the 
establishment of Christianity. The weight to 
which that evidence is entitled, in proving the 
divinity of Christianity, is a farther question, 
and one that will next engage our attention. 

To show that that history is true, we cite ex- 
actly the same kind of proofs, but in a much 
higher degree, as in establishing the authen- 



76 Positive Evidences. [Parti. 

ticity of" any other ancient writings, and such 
as are universally admitted in all other cases 
to be sufficient to establish authenticity beyond 
all reasonable doubt. These are the concur- 
rent testimony of contemporaneous and suc- 
ceeding authors ; the difficulty of a forgery, in 
the very nature of the case ; the internal marks 
of authenticity, in the language of the book, its 
style, and its agreement within itself; its agree- 
ment ivith the customs, manners, and history, 
of the time and country in which it professes 
to have been written ; the character of its au- 
thor or authors for truth and accuracy of in- 
formation ; the merit of the work itself, in 
moral character, worth, and dignity; the fact 
of great changes having taken place in the 
world's history through the facts they allege 
to have occurred; the present existence of 
world-wide and powerful institutions — as, e. 
g., the Christian Church — alleged to have de- 
rived their origin from those facts, and of 
whose origin — greatest of earthly institutions, 
as they are, and having their beginning, with- 
out doubt, in an age and a country highly en- 
lightened, and of whose history we have a mi- 
nute account — we have no other explanation, 
nor even any probable hypothesis. These, and 
such like proofs, are held sufficient fully to de- 
cide the truth of any alleged facts of past times. 



Ch. 5.-] Competency and Credibility. 77 

Very seldom, if indeed in any single case, do 
they all coincide to establish the truth of any 
ancient writings whatever, except that of the 
Gospel history ; and used separately, as they 
are continually, to test the authenticity of other 
ancient writings, and combining, as they do, to 
attest the validity of the Gospels, we must con- 
cede that its truth is proved beyond all reason- 
able doubt. To exhibit the force of that proof, 
we will present the evidence to show — first, 
that the Gospel account existed at, or at least 
immediately after, the time and in the place 
when and where its alleged facts occurred ; and, 
secondly, that thus existing, as it did, where 
detection was easy and certain, it could never 
have gained acceptance or escaped an expos- 
ure, if it had been an imposture, and its alleged 
facts had never happened. 

1. The Gospel histories were written in the 
countries, and very soon after the time, in which 
the events they record took place. 

(1) We have the external testimony of other 
authors living near the same time and place to 
this fact. "We receive," writes Home (Intro- 
duction, etc.), from whom much of the follow- 
ing argument is drawn, "the works of Mat- 
thew, Mark, etc., for the same reasons that we 
receive those of Xenophon, Caesar, etc., . . . 
but in a much stronger degree. For, very clif- 



78 Positive Evidences. [Parti. 

ferently from the classics, the N ew Testament 
was read over three-quarters of the world, 
while other authors were limited to one nation, 
or country — were read publicly and often, and 
were acknowledged by large societies to be the 
writings of apostles and others, as they profess. 
An uninterrupted succession of writers, from 
the apostolic times down — some friends, some 
enemies — either quote from or make allusions 
to them. Translations were made in the sec- 
ond century, which were greatly multiplied in 
the course of one or two centuries, so that forg- 
ery became absolutely impossible, unless we 
suppose that men of different nations, senti- 
ments, languages, and often exceedingly hos- 
tile to each other, should all agree in one forg- 
ery. But if we are to do this, we may throw 
aside all the writings in the world, and reject 
human testimony altogether." But it is evi- 
dent that, if not genuine, the Gospels must be 
forgeries, and forgeries too of later ages, since 
a forged history could certainly not be palmed 
off upon the age itself of which it gave its false 
history. Yet it is equally evident that a forg- 
ery in such later age, when it would have had 
to have been published at once in various and 
widely-separated languages and countries, and, 
more still, as the sacred writings which had 
been held by them and their fathers, through 



Oh. 5.] Competency and Credibility. 79 

several generations, to comprise the supreme 
rule of their conduct — it is evident that such 
an imposition as this would have been impos- 
sible. 

Moreover, all the marks of forgery are want- 
ing. To give us a reasonable ground for sus- 
picion, even, that a work is spurious, there 
must exist at least one of the following circum- 
stances : (1) Doubts entertained from its ap- 
pearance in the world as to its genuineness ; 
or (2), denials by immediate friends of the pre- 
tended author, who were able to decide upon the 
subject; or (3), a long series of years elapsed 
after his death, in which the book was un- 
known ; or (4), a style different from his other 
writings, or different from what might reason- 
ably be expected ; or (5), events recorded that 
happened later than the time of the pretended 
author ; or (6), opinions recorded contrary to 
those he was known to hold. But not one of 
these can be pretended to hold against the gen- 
uineness of the Gospel histories. It is unrea- 
sonable and unjust, then, to charge them with 
being forgeries of a later date, merely from 
self-will, and without any ground of rejection. 

On the other hand, we have a succession of 
writers, friendly and hostile, quoting and al- 
luding to the things recorded in the Gospels, 
as well-known facts, running up to the apos- 



80 Positive Evidences. [Parti. 

tolic age. In the fourth century we have nu- 
merous writers, such as Jerome, Eusebius, 
Augustin, Athanasius, etc. Ten catalogues 
are given, of which six name the books we now 
have, and no others; and, of the other four, 
three omit Revelation only, and one, by Phi- 
last er, of Brescia, omits Hebrews and Revela- 
tion only — both which he, however, expressly 
acknowledges in his other works. In the third 
century, Origen, Gregory, Cyprian, and other 
Christians, various heretical sects, and the Em- 
peror Julian the Apostate (an infidel), all bear 
their testimony. In the second century we 
have Tertullian, of Carthage, first an orthodox, 
afterward an heretical, writer ; Clement, of Al- 
exandria; Theophilus, of Antioch ; Athenag- 
oras, of Athens; Irenaeus, of Lyons; Melito, 
of Sarclis ; Hegesippus, a converted Jew ; Ta- 
tian; Justin Martyr, of Palestine; and Papias, 
of Hieropolis — all of whom mention some of 
the books, and some nearly all the books, of 
the New Testament. And besides these, Mar- 
cion, the Sabellians, Arians, Donatists, Nova- 
tians, Manicheans, and other heretics, with 
Celsus and Porphyry, infidels and bitter ene- 
mies of Christianity, all make various allusions 
to the New Testament books, and without in- 
timating a doubt of their authenticity. And 
in the first century, at widely-separated dis- 



Ch. 5.] Competency and Credibility. 81 

tances, the following widely - differing writers 
do the same, viz. : Barnabas and Clement, the 
fellow-laborers of Paul ; Hermas, their contem- 
porary (vide Rom. xvi. 14) ; Ignatius, who was 
Bishop of Antioch, A.D. 70; Polycarp, of 
Smyrna, a disciple of St. John, and who died 
about A.D. 166 ; Cerinthus, a heretic, contem- 
porary with St. John, and the Ebionites. 

At greater detail Row (Bampton Lectures, 
1877) shows the weight of this testimony, as 
follows : 1. Irenseus, Clement, and Tertullian, 
toward the end of the second century, as clear- 
ly recognized the Gospels as of canonical au- 
thority as we. 2. Marcion's Gospel, A.D. 140, 
was a mutilated copy of Luke's. 3. The Gos- 
pels used by the authors above are of very 
corrupt text, and therefore must have been 
in existence some time. 4. Papias, who died 
about A.D. 163, mentions Matthew and Luke. 
5. The Apostolic Fathers mention them. Jus- 
tin Martyr, who wrote A.D. 145-150, and whose 
life therefore brings us back to within eighty 
or eighty-five years of the death of Christ, or 
about as long as that of Wesley to our own 
times, speaks of the Memoirs of the Apostles, 
and "the Gospels," which were publicly read 
in the Church. 6. Clement, of Rome, Poly- 
carp, and Ignatius, whose lives covered even 
earlier periods, also refer to the same facts as 
4* 



82 Positive Evidences. [Parti. 

are contained in the Gospels. Now, the refer- 
ences in Justin are about two hundred in num- 
ber, one hundred and ninety-six of which, for 
all practical purposes, are the same as those 
recorded in the Gospels. It is certain too that 
he used some documents which he designates 
as "Gospels." Now, if these were different 
from those we have — i. e., as to their author- 
ship — then we have merely additional accounts 
of our Lord's life and words, and their histor- 
ical reality is so much the more assured ; and 
the more numerous the documents, the more 
is it assured, since the greater the number of 
witnesses testifying to the same facts, the more 
conclusively are those facts proved. The same 
is true also of the earlier Fathers, and proves 
that the traditions embodied in the Gospels 
must have been accepted by the Church in a 
written or oral form during the last twenty 
years of the first century, and, also, if there were 
then traditions of a different form current, they 
were afterward rejected. But Christ was cru- 
cified about the thirty-third year of the first 
century ; there was then an interval of certain- 
ly no more than forty -seven to sixty- seven 
years between his death and the first existence 
of those accounts. In so short a time it would 
not have been possible to forge such legends, 
and impose them upon a considerable body of 



Ch. 5.] Competency and Credibility. 83 

men, scattered over so wide an expanse of 
country as were the Christian Churches, and 
that in the face of the great opposition both 
of the Jews and the heathen. 

These considerations justly entitle us to 
claim that the Gospels, as we have them, ex- 
isted very soon after Christ's crucifixion. We 
observe farther : 

2. The narrative bears indisputable evi- 
dence internally that it is genuine. 1st. The 
confidence with which the authors narrate their 
story shows them to be writers addressing 
their contemporaries on matters well known 
to each. 2d. Their numerous and minute 
allusions to the manners and customs of the 
time and nation, and to the geography of the 
country, in which they profess to have lived, 
prove their genuineness. Their familiar ac- 
quaintance with the religious ceremonies of 
the Jews, the prevalence, in their writings, of 
words, phrases, and thoughts, derived from 
the Old Testament, prove that they were Jews ; 
and so as to their continual references to the 
ordinary habits of the people, and to the phys- 
ical characteristics of the country of Pales- 
tine.* 

*Van Lennep, the acknowledged authority on the sub- 
ject, says (" Bible Lands/' p. 807) : " These facts furnish 
an overwhelming argument for the authenticity of the 



84 Positive Evidences. [Part I. 

3d. The language and style in which they 
are written prove the same thing beyond con- 
troversy. Greek was at that time a sort of 
universal language as English is now. Of 
course, when used by a nation not Greek, it 
almost certainly became intermixed with many 

Scriptures. Not only their topography but the manners 
and customs of the people therein depicted give evidence 
on every page that the Bible was written in Western Asia, 
and by Asiatics, about the time claimed. It could have 
been peuned nowhere else, and by no other people. So 
many minute and, in themselves considered, insignificant 
circumstances are woven into the narrative as to make de- 
ceit or imposture an utter impossibility. Let an Occidental 
take up any Bible narrative, and attempt to reproduce it 
in his own words with an equal degree of minuteness, and 
before many minutes an Oriental audience would be sure 
to show unmistakable signs of mirth, on account of the in- 
congruity of some of his details. If he does not, like the 
colored preacher, speak of Martha as ' busy frying fritters/ 
he cannot well avoid, in some other way, showing the dif- 
ference which exists between the habits of the West and 
those of the East. . . . And when we consider the many 
mistakes as to facts contained in the most carefully-written 
histories and narratives, and notice, at the same time, the 
perfect freedom of the Bible from all such mistakes, though 
it is a voluminous and extremely varied compilation, and 
many of its writers illiterate men, we cannot avoid the 
conclusion that we have in the present case something be- 
yond mere authenticity. We see most unmistakable evi- 
dence that the authors of the Bible were guided and con- 
trolled in their work by the special influence of that Spirit 
which alone can never err." 



Ch. 5.] Competency and Credibility. 85 

peculiarities and forms of expression derived 
from the language of that nation — just as hap- 
pens when a foreigner endeavors to speak 
English. Now, the Greek of the New Testa- 
ment is not pure Greek, such as a native would 
write, but it is intermixed with many pecul- 
iarities such as belonged exclusively to the lan- 
guages called the East-Aramean (or Hebrew), 
and West- Aram ean (or Syriac) — the languages 
that were spoken, at that time, by the Jews in 
Palestine. But the total overthrow of Jerusa- 
lem by the Romans in the year A.D. 70 — less 
than forty years after the crucifixion of Christ 
— and the consequent great slaughter and dis- 
persion of the Jews, made great changes of all 
kinds, and, among others, changed the language 
greatly, so that in the succeeding generation, 
or sixty or seventy years after Christ, it would 
have been almost impossible to write in such 
a dialect. Besides, there was no one then who 
would have done so. The Jews would not 
certainly, and the only sects remaining in Pal- 
estine in the second century were Nazarenes 
and Ebionites, and they used but one Gospel, 
and that a translation in Hebrew. They would 
scarcely have forged a whole New Testament, 
and that too in Greek. The only reasonable 
conclusion is that the New Testament was 
written in the first century, and by natives of 



86 Positive Evidences. [Part I. 

Syria, as they profess. And the same con- 
clusion is borne out by the character of the 
style in which its books are written. Plain 
and unadorned, the style of the Gospels shows 
that their authors were such as they are de- 
scribed — plain, unlearned men. In the Epistles 
of Paul, on the other hand, the learning dis- 
played, the strong but irregular argument — 
the learning being that which only an educated 
Jew would likely possess, the whole style of 
argumentation that which a Jewish convert 
confuting his brethren on ground familiar to 
both would employ — both give good evidence 
that he is really the author. And so in gen- 
eral, the characteristics of both language and 
thought are those belonging to the persons, 
the time, and the occasions, from which they 
claim to have derived their origin. 

4th. The very numerous circumstances re- 
lated in the New Testament, and their agree- 
ment with the history of the times, prove its 
authenticity. Whoever undertakes to forge 
a set of writings, and ascribe them to persons 
who lived in another age, exposes himself to 
the utmost danger of a discrepancy with the 
history and manners of that age. Of all books 
there would be none so liable to detection as 
the New Testament, were it a forgery. The 
scene of action is not confined to a single city, 



Ch. 5.] Competency and Credibility. 87 

but extends to the greatest cities of the Roman 
empire ; and continual allusions are made to the 
various customs and opinions of the Greeks, 
the Romans, and the Jews. If then the New 
Testament, after the severest scrutiny, is found 
to harmonize perfectly with the history, the 
customs, and even the opinions, of the first 
century, and if the more minutely we inquire 
the more perfect we find the coincidence, we 
must conclude that it was beyond the power 
of human ability to forge it. Yet such is the 
fact. Space cannot here be given to even 
mention those numerous coincidences. The 
following, however, may be taken as examples 
of them, the whole number of which it has 
taken volumes to set forth (vide " Paley's 
Evidences," and his " Horge Paulinse," and 
" Blunt's Undesigned Coincidences "), viz. : 
The division of Palestine into the three prin- 
cipal provinces of Judea, Samaria, and Gali- 
lee ; the existence of two chief religious sects, 
the Pharisees and Sadducees, among the Jews 
of that period ; the standing of the temple still 
in Jerusalem, its visitation by Jews from all 
parts of the world, etc. Many of these are 
presupposed rather than formally stated — just 
as a genuine account would do — and there are 
more convincingly still many more minute 
and latent coincidences, abounding in the 



88 Positive Evidences. [Parti. 

twenty-seven different books of the New Testa- 
ment, which only a close and laborious study 
brings to light. {Vide Paley and Blunt, as 
above.) JNo forgery could so perfectly accom- 
plish its work as this; and when we reflect, 
in addition, that those twenty -seven books 
were written, as their style undeniably shows, 
by several authors, the difficulty of forgery 
— simultaneously by several hands — is im- 
mensely increased. Add to this the fact that 
the most adverse criticism, after the longest 
and most searching seeking, has never yet suc- 
ceeded in exposing a single discrepancy in the 
multitude of their incidental allusions and mi- 
nute references to the history, customs, man- 
ners, and opinions, of Greeks, Romans, and 
Jews, and we must say that a forgery was 
wholly impossible. But if the Gospels are not 
forgeries, they are genuine, and were written 
at the time and place in which they profess to 
have been written. 

From the latter consideration alone we might 
well come to this conclusion ; but when we con- 
sider with it also the force of all the other 
various and independent preceding evidences 
which we have cited in support of the same 
conclusion, it is not only shown to be probably 
true, but morally certain. The confidence and 
familiarity with the circumstances apparent in 



Ch. 5.] Competency and Credibility. 89 

the authors, the tongue in which they write — 
impossible to later writers — and the minute 
and perfect coincidence of their accounts with 
the manners, etc., of the times and countries, 
would alone be sufficient to prove the genuine- 
ness of the New Testament Scriptures ; but 
when we add to all this their mention, and 
even quotation, and that without a single de- 
nial from any quarter, whether Christian, her- 
etic, Jew, or infidel, by writers both friendly 
and hostile, extending to within fifty to seven- 
ty years, at the least, of Christ, we must con- 
clude that the New Testament was in existence 
in the countries and at the time that is claimed 
for it. 

2. It is still necessary, however, to show that 
the New Testament is a true account of the 
things it relates. Thus far w r e have shown 
only that it must have existed very soon after 
the crucifixion of Christ. But this does not 
make it at once obvious that it is therefore 
true. To prove that it is true will therefore 
be our next task, and will occupy the remain- 
der of the chapter. We argue this from — 

(1) The character of its authors. While the 
character of a witness is good and unimpeached, 
the presumption is that his testimony is true. 
It cannot be doubted that the authors of the 
New Testament were in a situation to know 



90 Positive Evidences. [Part I. 

concerning the facts they relate. They were 
the chief witnesses of some, and principal act- 
ors in others, of those facts. Their opportuni- 
ties for correct information were therefore ^the 
best possible ; and that they were also honest 
and truthful narrators, we also maintain. For 
(vide Row, Bampton Lectures, 1877), 1st. Their 
moral character, though rigidly tested then, 
and closely examined since, has never been 
impeached by anyone, even by their bitterest 
opponents; 2d. The plainness and simplicity 
of their accounts show them to have been plain, 
simple men, unable, if they wished, to frame so 
vast, so highly ingenious, and so unrivaled, a 
scheme of fraud as this is, if it is an invented 
story ; 3d. They had no interests to serve in 
doing so, for the New Testament was not cal- 
culated in any way to advance their worldly 
interests, but enjoins nothing but the utmost 
unworldliness and self-sacrifice on all its fol- 
lowers, and the promulgation of its principles 
actually brought upon them, throughout their 
lives, the most extreme miseries. 

(2) The character of their accounts them- 
selves. 1st. Their whole style of writing about 
the most astonishing events — e. g., the raising 
of the dead, etc. — is so calm and argumenta- 
tive — almost without a trace of emotion — as 
shows them to be any thing but enthusiasts, 



Ch. 5.] Competency and Credibility. 91 

and proves them therefore likely neither to be 
self-deceived nor desirous of deceiving others. 
2d. Their plainness and simplicity in relating 
their own errors and faults — e. g., in their for- 
saking and denial of Jesus in his hour of great- 
est need, as well as in telling unreservedly the 
lowliness of the birth and condition of their 
Lord, his rejection by his nation, his ignomin- 
ious execution on the cross as a malefactor, etc. 
— this simple truth and frankness apparent 
gives good reason to conclude the truth of the 
whole. 3d. Their entire, substantial agree- 
ment proves its truth. They evidently write 
• without any reference to each other. Their 
different arrangements of the matters they 
relate in common, their relation each of some 
facts which the others omit, and their relation 
of the same facts, varying as truthful witnesses 
looking from diverse stand-points always vary, 
but forgers never, prove this. Nevertheless, 
they all substantially agree — notably, e. g., in 
the traits of character given of Jesus, and in 
the exhibition of his words and actions — the 
great foundation of Christianity. 4th. They ap- 
peal themselves to proofs notorious at the time. 
(Vide 1 Cor. i. 4, 5; ii. 4, 5; v. 3-5; xii. ; xiii. 
8; xiv. 1-33; 2 Cor. xii. 7-11; Gal. iii. 5; 1 
Thess. i. 5.) 

(3) There was a general and undisputed be- 



92 Positive Evidences. [p ar t I. 

lief in the facts narrated in the Gospels im- 
mediately after the death of Christ. The two 
Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians, and those 
to the Romans and Galatians, are now almost 
universally admitted, by even the most skep- 
tical scholars, to be genuine and authentic, and 
written within twenty- eight years from the 
crucifixion of Christ, as also the two to the 
Thessalonians, and those to the Philippians 
and to Philemon, written A.D. 55 to A.D. 62. 
Being letters, they are of a species of docu- 
ments now everywhere acknowledged to be of 
the very highest authority, and being written 
to Churches in which, as their contents show, 
there were parties hostile to Paul (vide Corin- 
thians, Galatians, etc.), by whom any errone- 
ous statement would have been instantly ex- 
posed, we may feel sure that all his statements 
as to the facts and doctrines believed at that 
time are entirely true. Now, we find that 
these letters, principally by their incidental 
allusions, but also by their direct statements, 
assert as undoubted truths all the principal 
facts related in the Gospels. 1st. They show 
that even then, less than thirty years after 
his crucifixion, Christ was generally considered, 
both by Paul himself and the whole Church, 
to be superhuman and divine ; for in those 
Epistles it is declared that He is the "Son of 



Ch. 5.] Competency and Credibility. 93 

God," "over all God blessed forever," our fut- 
ure Judge ; that he was crucified ; that he was 
the object of prayer — the "one Lord" — that 
he was " preached ; " and that no ' ' other Jesus ' ' 
was to be preached, nor "another gospel." 
(Vide 1 Cor. i. 1-3, 23, 30, 31; iv. 1-5; viii.; 
2 Cor. xi. 3-5; Gal. i. 6-9; Phil. i. 15-18; 
Rom. i. 1-4; ix. 3-5; xiv. 4-12.) So in the 
Apocalypse, which is also admitted to be gen- 
uine, He is made "the Prince of the kings of 
the earth," the "First and Last," the Living- 
One, who "was dead and is alive fore verm ore," 
and is worshiped in heaven. 2d. Baptism and 
the Supper are mentioned by Paul as then ex- 
isting, Gal. iii. 27; 1 Cor. xi. 23-25; the res- 
urrection, 1 Cor. xv. ; the Lord's teaching re- 
ferred to, 1 Cor. vii. 10-12; ix. 13, 14; Christ 
is set forth as the great subject of teaching, 2 
Cor. iv. 3-6; iii. 18; Phil. iii. 8-10; as also 2 
Pet. i. 8; iii. 18; 1 Cor. 23, 24; Eph. iv. 20, 
21; 1 Cor. x. 31-33; xi. 1; Rom. xv. 1-3, 5, 
6; Eph. iv. 17-21; Heb. ii. 1-4. These and 
other such passages prove — (1) that the Church 
was then in possession of some accounts of 
Christ ; (2) that these were substantially the 
same as in our Gospels ; and (3), that Christ, 
within thirty years of his death, was the great 
Object of their adoration and imitation. 

(4) They brought many others into a like 



94 Positive Evidences. [Parti. 

firm belief of the things which they related, 
who before had even been enemies. 

(5) There have universally existed, ever 
since those alleged events, certain commem- 
orative ordinances, or monuments, of great 
celebrity, the observance of which can no more 
be accounted for, unless the facts, on which 
they are said to have been founded, really 
happened, than the observance of the Fourth 
of July in the United States, or Guy Fawkes 
Day in England. Such are Christian Baptism, 
the Lord's Supper, and the change, after 
Christ's resurrection, of the observance of the 
seventh day as a day of rest to that of the 
first — all of which are evidences of Christ's 
life, death, and resurrection, as of the Chris- 
tian Church generally. 

(6) All the testimony that we have from pro- 
fane authors attest the same facts. Tacitus 
says (Annals, 66) that the Christians "took 
their name from one Christ, who, during the 
reign of Tiberius, was sentenced under Pilate." 
Lucianus (De Morte Peregrini, c. 11, 12, 13) 
expressly mentions his crucifixion, and calls 
Jesus "the great man who was crucified in 
Palestine;" and again, "the crucified sophist 
(or wise man), who had been the author of a 
new religion." Suetonius mentions (in Clau- 
dio, cap. 25) the fact of "the Jews rebelling 



Ch. 5.] Competency and Credibility. 95 

in Rome, on the instigation of Christ" — a false 
charge, indeed, as alleged against Christ, but 
necessarily testifying to the existence of Christ 
and his supposed great influence over the Jews. 
And Pliny, A.D. 110 (Epist. Plin. x. 97), says 
"that the Christians were accustomed to sing 
hymns to Christ as to a God." Besides these 
Romans, Josephus, the Jewish historian, says 
" In those days lived Jesus, a wise man, for he 
perpetrated several extraordinary works, and 
made many Jews and heathen his followers. 
When Pilate had condemned him, on the accu- 
sation of our most prominent men, those who 
first loved him did not forsake him. And to 
this day the sect of Christians, called after his 
name, has not died out" (Ant. xviii. 3, 3; cf. 
5. 2, xx. 9, 1 ; D. B. J. vi. 5, 4). In the Jewish 
Mischna also, and the Gemara (vide Princeton 
Review, July, 1878, p." 118), calumnies against 
him and his mother, there contained, prove at 
least that the accounts of his miraculous con- 
ception and immaculate birth were then gen- 
erally known. And, besides all these, there 
are remains existing of Christian art, monu- 
ments, emblematical representations, etc., dat- 
ing back to the time of the Antonines, A.D. 
138-180, and found in Italy — a long distance, 
in those days, from Palestine, wmere Chris- 
tianity first arose — which testify also to the 



96 Positive Evidences. [Parti. 

same facts. And the excavations in Pompeii 
have, in our own clay, brought to light such 
evidences on the walls that still stand of her 
ruined houses.* 

But Pompeii was destroyed A.D. 79. These 
remains, then, show that Christianity, and con- 
sequently its doctrines and facts, were known 
that early in that distant land. Indeed, the 
indisputable fact that tl\e first persecution 
against the Christians broke out under Nero, 
"in the tenth year of his reign" (vide Gibbon's 
" Decline and Fall," etc., ch. ix., sec. 3), proves, 
beyond all controversy, that the Christian 
Church was then in existence as far even as 
Rome, and therefore its doctrines, and the great 
facts of Christ's life, death, and resurrection, 
upon which those doctrines are founded, were 
even then well known there, and believed. 

(7) Furthermore, the facts thus presented 
make it evident, from the very nature of the 
case, that a forged account would have been 
impossible. As w r e have seen, so early as A.D. 
64 — only about thirty years after Christ — 

* One of these is the remains of scoffing jests against 
the Christians, scribbled on the walls, as, for instance, the 
words, "(i)gni gaudi (C)hristiance" — "Be glad for there 
being fire, O Christians " — intended to mock at those Chris- 
tians who were condemned to be burnt at the stake (vide 
Row's Bampton Lectures). 



Ch. 5.] Competency and Credibility. 97 

Christianity had reached as far as Rome, and 
also had had time to make such progress there 
as to excite a persecution against them. But, 
as Row mentions, Sir Gr. C. Lewis, in his work 
on the " Credibility of Early Roman History," 
for the purposes of a critical examination into 
the authenticity of the early Roman traditions, 
has shown that if an account be published 
within even eighty or ninety years of the time 
in which the facts it professes to relate oc- 
curred, it is still within the period of genuine 
historical tradition, and capable of having its 
authenticity fully tested by the knowledge of 
those events, still current among the people. 
Thus, the battle of Waterloo, or even the 
American Revolution, which was one hundred 
years ago, may thus be tested. Many persons 
are living who have had the accounts of those 
times from their fathers, and some even of those 
who took part in them may remain. . A popu- 
lar knowledge of them thus exists throughout 
the countries which they have particularly af- 
fected. Now, it would be manifestly impossi- 
ble to impose upon the people that such trans- 
actions had not then taken place. It would 
be equally impossible to persuade people 
within such a period that great transactions 
had then taken place of which they had never 
known personally, nor ever before heard. But 
5 



98 Positive Evidences. [Part I. 

when we try so to impose upon the world, only 
twenty or thirty years after the alleged facts 
are said to have occurred, and persuade peo- 
ple that great public events had then occurred, 
when they had never even been heard of, suc- 
cess is surely impossible. Yet this is what Ave 
must believe as to the history of the Gospels, 
if it is a forgery. Its accounts were circulated 
certainly as early as twenty to thirty years 
after the facts it relates are alleged to have 
taken place, and that too in the very country 
where they were said to have occurred. Those 
accounts state that those facts excited the 
greatest public commotions and tumults ; they 
recite events of the most remarkable and mi- 
raculous character, said to have happened in 
the presence of multitudes ; and they are put 
forth with an air of the greatest assurance 
that those facts were indisputable. Surely, if 
it had not been generally known that they had 
taken place, those accounts could never have 
obtained credence for a single hour. The in- 
habitants of Palestine would, on hearing them, 
begin to ask, How was it they had never be- 
fore heard of this Jesus, who was said to have 
traveled, time and again, only twenty years 
ago, or less, over all the country, conspicu- 
ously presenting himself in all their most 
public places, preaching constantly in their 



Ch. 5.] Competency and Credibility. 99 

synagogues to the assembled congregations; 
driving out the traders from the temple ; fol- 
lowed by thousands about the country ; work- 
ing miracles by scores, so that he healed the sick, 
made the blind to see, the dumb to talk; and 
even raised the dead, and fed the thousands 
in the desert ; at last was greeted by the mul- 
titudes at their own great Passover -feast at 
Jerusalem with hosannas as their Messiah; 
afterward apprehended, tried publicly, first by 
their own chief tribunal, and then before the 
Roman governor ; then executed on the cross, 
with the accompaniment of a remarkable dark- 
ness over the land, an earthquake, and the rend- 
ing of the vail of the temple ? Surely, if they had 
never before heard of these things, they would 
have received such accounts with contempt, 
and rejected them at once with scorn. 

That they did not do so, but, on the contrary, 
in great numbers received and believed them, 
to the loss often of property, liberty, and life, 
proves that those accounts were known to be 
true. If they had not been true, moreover, 
both the Jews — who from the first were most 
violent enemies of Christianity, and the Ro- 
mans, who, as we have seen, soon became their 
most cruel persecutors, having together, as 
they had, all the power of the government, and 
all the means of investigation at their sole 



100 Positive Evidences. [Part I. 

command — would have been able to detect and 
expose this imposture of the poor and despised 
Christians, who had no resources of wealth or 
power whatever. And they would certainly 
have done so, and shown and put on record, 
as they could have done, the falseness of those 
alleged public and notorious miracles, etc., of 
Jesus. That no one of them ever did it at any 
time during the three hundred years of the 
first period of Christianity, when it was perse- 
cuted throughout the Roman empire with the 
most dreadful cruelty and bloodshed, proves 
that such exposure was impossible, because 
there was no such imposture. That the Chris- 
tian religion continued to grow through those 
three hundred years, till at last it became the 
mistress of the empire, proves that men knew 
then that its facts were true. 

In addition to all this, let us again weigh 
such consideration as the following, already 
mentioned: Its authors had no worldly mo- 
tive to serve by inventing such a false story. 
The fact that it was not the established relig- 
ion of any nation for three hundred years, 
makes it perfectly absurd to suppose it the 
offspring of priestcraft or political contrivance. 
Indeed, in its very character, teaching as it 
does the utmost self-abnegation as the highest 
duty of man, it is not adapted to further any 



Ch. 5.] Competency and Credibility. 101 

worldly interests ; and in point of fact, its pro- 
mulgation did subject them, through long 
years, to the severest sufferings. "If the 
apostles were all honest, they were incapable 
of such deception; if they were all knaves, 
they were unlikely to labor to make men vir- 
tuous ; but if some were honest, and some 
cheats, the latter could not have so deceived 
the former as to matters of fact." — Home. Nor 
would their accounts so wonderfully agree. 

(8) Finally, the portraiture of Christ which 
we have in the Gospels could never, as Row 
shows us (Bampton Lectures, 1877), have been 
the creation of any human genius. As we shall 
see hereafter, some of the most eminent skep- 
tics themselves unite in declaring that He is 
unquestionably the grandest Character in his- 
tory. Mill, in the last of his posthumous es- 
says, says : " It is of no use to say that Christ, 
as exhibited in the Gospels, is not historical. 
. . . Who among his disciples, or among their 
proselytes, was capable of inventing the say- 
ings ascribed to Jesus, or of imagining the life 
and character revealed in the Gospels ? Cer- 
tainly not the 'fishermen of Galilee, certainly 
not St. Paul, and still less the early Christian 
writers, in whom nothing was more evident 
than that the good which was in them was all 
derived, as they all professed that it was, from 



102 Positive Evidences. [Parti. 

a higher source." And so Rousseau asserts 
that the inventor of such a story would he "a 
more wonderful character than the hero." 

"It is a palpable fact that this great charac- 
ter, though made up in its delineation of a 
vast number of parts, or, in other words, of all 
the facts recorded in the Gospels, yet forms 
not a mere congeries of materials, but a per- 
fect unity ; and no theory can give a philo- 
sophical account of this fact except that the 
Gospels are, in all their main outlines, truly 
historical. That it was of deliberate inven- 
tion, and that a character which, as Lecky (a 
skeptic) says, has proved to be 'the greatest 
incentive to holiness,' is itself the product of 
conscious fraud, is so intrinsically incredible 
that it has been abandoned even by all the 
great leaders of modern unbelief. Nor could 
it be the product of self-delusion, or the ag- 
glomeration of myths and legends accumulat- 
ing in the course of time. Its unquestionable 
unity and perfection could never have so orig- 
inated. Even as the creation of a single ge- 
nius, it has been said by Rousseau to have 
been impossible ; but we have here four delin- 
eations, each contributing, and all necessary, 
to the perfect whole. And if we suppose it the 
product of myths, then it was the creation not 
only of the persons who originally invented 



Ch. 5.] Competency and Credibility. 103 

them, but of as many more as contributed to 
them, in whatever degree, and therefore of a 
large number. Now, these could never have 
so agreed unless the Personage they describe 
had been a reality ; for never have men been 
able to invent a character at once exhibiting — 
(1) The most perfect manifestation of benevo- 
lence, tempered with holiness; (2) absolute 
unselfishness, the contrary never appearing in 
a single act or word ; (3) the highest and most 
unique self-assertion, united with the most per- 
fect humility ; (4) the same ideal of morality, 
preserved throughout in all the Gospels ; (5) 
in fine, perfect moral perfection, without one 
spot. The legendary spirit never invented 
any thing of a moral type so elevated as this ; 
nor, if it could, would the several succeeding 
writers have likely concurred in selecting only 
the elevated myths, and neglecting all of a con- 
trary character ; nor, if they had, would such 
a chastened edition of the legends have so en- 
tirely gained acceptance with the popular mind ; 
nor, finally, could so exquisite a picture of 
moral character ever have been formed by 
such a mode of selection and simple juxtapo- 
sition, any more than a beautiful picture by a 
painter selecting portions of other inferior 
works, and merely joining them together." 
Now, to all the foregoing testimony apply 



104 Positive Evidences. [p ar t i. 

the accepted rules governing our assent to 
facts which are sought to be established by 
evidence. "In the second place [i. e., next to 
the first general ground of evidence — viz., our 
natural confidence in testimony — as referred 
to in the preceding chapter], evidence," says 
Greenleaf ("Evidence," id. as above), "rests 
upon our general experience of the truth of 
the statements of men of integrity, having ca- 
pacity and opportunity for observation, and 
without apparent influence from passion or 
interest to pervert the truth. This belief is 
strengthened by our previous knowledge of 
the narrator's reputation for veracity, by the 
absence of conflicting testimony, and by the 
presence of that which is corroborating and 
cumulative. Again, the third basis of evi- 
dence is the known and experienced connection 
subsisting between collateral facts or circum- 
stances, satisfactorily proved, and the fact in 
controversy . . . connections either phys- 
ical or moral. In the actual occurrences of hu- 
man life nothing is inconsistent. Every event 
which actually transpires has its appropriate 
relation and place in the vast complications 
of circumstances, of which the affairs of men 
consist; it owes its origin to those which have 
preceded it; it is intimately connected with 
all others which occur at the same time and 



Ch. 5.] Competency and Credibility. 105 

place, and often with those of remote regions, 
and in its turn gives birth to a thousand others 
which succeed. In all this there is a perfect 
harmony ; so that it is hardly possible to invent 
a story which, if closely compared with all the 
actual contemporaneous occurrences, may not 
be shown to be false." Take these principles 
— which, with that of our natural belief in the 
testimony of others, constitute all the basis of 
evidence — and how strongly do they singly, and 
much more when combined, affirm the truth of 
the apostles' testimony. The apostles had " ca- 
pacity and opportunity for observation" most 
abundant; they had no possible worldly "in- 
terest to pervert the truth ; " they have always 
had the most unimpeached "reputation for ve- 
racity;" there is no "conflicting testimony" 
(though the Jews and the Gentile unbelievers, 
who have always existed, had the most favor- 
able opportunity, first to collect it, and after- 
ward, from generation to generation, to pre- 
serve it, had there been any, against the hated 
Christians); the evidence has much that is 
"corroborative and cumulative;" and, final- 
ly, all the preceding (as we shall see farther 
on), contemporaneous, and succeeding, circum- 
stances, are in entire harmony with it. Indeed, 
the succeeding history of the world — the suc- 
cess of Christianity, and the great changes it 



106 Positive Evidences. [Parti. 

caused in the nations — cannot otherwise be ex- 
plained; and all this occurred too, not in an 
age, or among a nation, too remote from intel- 
ligence and civilization for us to have any suf- 
ficient light by which to judge of their reality, 
but in the most enlightened age of ancient 
times, and concerning whose transactions we 
have the fullest history. 

Still more, consider these farther laws of ev- 
dence which, in justice, we must always ob- 
serve in estimating whether a witness is guilty 
of falsehood. " Where a criminal charge is to 
be proved by circumstantial evidence [as must 
be in convicting the apostles of false witness], 
the proof ought to be not only consistent with 
the prisoner's guilt, but inconsistent with every 
other rational conclusion. This presumption is 
so strong, that where the guilt can be estab- 
lished only by proving a negative, that nega- 
tive must in most cases be proved by the party 
alleging the guilt, though the general rule of 
law devolves the burden of proof on the party 
holding the affirmation" (Greenleaf's "Evi- 
dence," Ch. iv., Sees. 34, 35). Again (vide id.), 
it is universally admitted that, in proving a 
case, it is sufficient to prove it in "substance," 
and that declarations against temporal inter- 
ests, dying declarations, preceding confirma- 
tory testimony, subjection to cross-examina- 



Ch. 5.] Competency and Credibility. 107 

tion, and admissions from the silence of op- 
posers, are all to have great weight toward 
establishing a fact. But all these marks the 
apostles' testimony had. They all, neverthe- 
less, testify in " substance," to say the least, 
to the same facts ; and any denial, on any hy- 
pothesis, of its truth, instead of being so "con- 
sistent with their guilt, and inconsistent with 
every other hypothesis," as to overthrow the 
presumption of their innocence, has always 
actually been found to be consistent with noth- 
ing, and inconsistent with all the circumstances 
of the time and place. 

We must assent to the absolute truth of the 
facts recounted in the Gospel histories. And 
this, with the preceding chapters, finishes the 
first part of our work by establishing the full 
admissibility of the evidence presented in those 
histories in proof of the divinity of Christian- 
ity, and brings us next to consider the weight 
of that evidence for that end. That consider- 
ation will occupy the Second Part of this work, 
to which the reader's sincere attention will 
then be invited. 

Previous to this, however, we will briefly 
show also that we have substantially the same 
accounts which those authors originally gave. 
This is proved by the collation of the Scripture 
citations made by the various authors already 



108 Positive Evidences. [Pari I. 

referred to, both friends and opponents, by 
the comparison of the versions in the differ- 
ent languages, but especially by that of the 
many ancient manuscripts existing of the New 
Testament. Indeed, the reverence in which 
these sacred books were held, the great care 
used to keep them uncorrupted, the denun- 
ciations made in themselves against all who 
should either "add any thing to," or "take any 
thing away, from the words written" therein, 
would lead us to expect no substantial alter- 
ation. And, in point of fact, on comparison 
of all those citations, all the various transla- 
tions and manuscripts, the latter amounting 
to thousands in number, though originally 
widely scattered over Europe, Asia, and Afri- 
ca, and guarded by extreme care and rever- 
ence, as also by the rival jealousies of different 
nations and the different sects into which the 
Church was early divided, we yet find no sub- 
stantial disagreement. In each individual 
manuscript, indeed, are to be found mistakes 
proceeding from negligence, ignorance, or una- 
voidable error in the copyist, who had always 
to laboriously transcribe by hand. These 
are such as the following, viz. : Sometimes 
substituting other words or letters in various 
places ; omitting, adding, or transposing words; 
incorporating notes and comments found on 



Ch. 5.] Competency and Credibility. 109 

the margin of the copy before them ; in en- 
deavoring to correct supposed errors therein ; 
and rarely through manifestly willful corrup- 
tion. But all, or nearly all, of these variations 
are slight and unimportant, and make no ma- 
terial difference in the meaning of the text. 
Such are — as in John i. 1, " The Word was in 
God," for "with God;" verse 3, "In him is 
life," for "was life;" verse 5, "The darkness 
comprehended him not," for " it not ; " verse 7, 
omitting " That all men might believe through 
him ; " verse 9, " That cometh into this world," 
for " the world." Many are even slighter than 
these, and cannot be made apparent in trans- 
lation. Moreover, they are not all found in 
any one manuscript; and thus we can correct 
the errors in one by the agreement found as 
to that particular part in the great mass of the 
other MSS., as well as the other versions and 
citations. 

On the other hand, the very fact of these 
variations existing in the various versions 
MSS., and citations, prove conclusively thai 
there could have been no agreement to forge 
between their authors, and therefore that they 
wrote independently of each other. But since 
they, nevertheless, substantially agree, we 
have in this the very strongest proof, both of 
the genuineness and the uncorrupted preser- 



110 Positive Evidences. [Parti. 

vation of the Scriptures ; and this evidence is 
the greater, the larger the number of citations, 
versions, and MSS., we have to compare, of 
the last of which there are thousands. 



PAET SEOOKD. 
The Weight of the Evidence — The Superhuman Facts. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE SUPERHUMAN ADVENT OF CHRIST. 

We now come to consider the weight of the 
evidence in favor of the divinity of Christian- 
ity. In doing so, we naturally turn, first, to 
those great facts of Christ's history, attested 
by the Gospels, which form the indispensable 
foundation of Christianity, and which, we al- 
lege, are not only true, but superhuman and 
divine. Now, fairly and fully to determine 
the real origin and character of any action or 
event, it is manifestly proper to examine, to 
the best of our ability, not only the circum- 
stances of its rise, but also its essential nature, 
its agreement in principle with other things 
known to proceed from the same author from 
which it professes to have come, and, lastly, 
its practical influence and tendency in the re- 
sults that have followed its occurrence in the 
world. For instance, if a written document — 

(111) 



112 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

a poem, a mathematical paper, or a business 
agreement — were presented to us as the work 
of some eminent man, if its genuineness were 
questioned, we ought to examine, first, wheth- 
er its internal character — in language and 
sentiment, in mathematical attainments, or in 
the business skill evident — is such as it is rea- 
sonable to expect from such a poet, mathema- 
tician, or business man, as the person whose 
production it is asserted to be. But, to test its 
genuineness thoroughly, we should not stop 
here, but proceed farther to compare the hand- 
writing, so far as we were able, with that of 
other documents known to be genuine. Far- 
ther, we should inquire what verdict other 
men, who have investigated the subject, have 
given, and, lastly, we should ask whether it 
has actually accomplished such results in the 
world, as such a document, by such a man, 
would reasonably be expected to produce. By 
these inquiries we should scarcely fail of de- 
tecting the forgery that professed to be a poem 
by Shakespeare, a scientific work by Newton, 
or an important paper by some great states- 
man, as Jefferson or Pitt; and these would 
comprise all the questions which could arise 
in any discussion of its genuineness. So in 
our examination of the Evidences of Christian- 
ity. The Christian Religion does not shrink 



Ch. l.] Weight of the Eoidence. 113 

from the most thorough investigation; nay, 
she courts it, and calls loudly, but often in vain, 
for an inquiry into her claims — and that by 
the application of all the tests of truth that 
are in the nature of the case possible — secure- 
ly confident that a candid and thorough in- 
spection will find fresh evidence on every side 
that she is truly divine. Accordingly, we will 
endeavor to consider her claims in all their 
aspects, and take up, first, the superhuman 
and divine character of the facts presented 
in the history of Christ (1. The Superhuman 
Facts) ; secondly, the superhuman and divine 
character of the results produced in the world 
by Christianity (2. The Superhuman Results) ; 
and, thirdly, conclude with a recapitulation 
and summing up of the whole evidence and 
argument, and with an estimation of its weight 
in favor of the divinity of the Christian relig- 
ion (3. Recapitulation and Conclusion). 

First, then, let us consider the superhuman 
facts. Under this head are ranged, succes- 
sively, the superhuman advent, the character, 
the teaching, the prophecies, and the miracles 
of Christ. Each of these, it is claimed, proves 
beyond a reasonable doubt the divinity of 
Christianity ; while all combined, as they are 
in the evidence of Christianity, together with 
the proof also afforded by the results follow- 



114 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

ing, give an irrefutable and convincing evi- 
dence of its divine nature. 

In offering that evidence, it is assumed that 
man is capable of distinguishing what is su- 
perhuman and divine. We can reasonably 
estimate — from history, from observation, and 
from self-consciousness — what is possible to 
merely human powers. We can therefore tell 
what is superhuman, and thus be capable of 
judging of the divine character of any thing 
that may be presented to us which claims that 
character. Besides, as Van Oosterzee truly 
says (" Dogmatics," p. 124), " If God can give 
a revelation, he can also, without doubt, make 
it so plainly recognizable as such that he who 
receives it will not have the slightest shadow 
of doubt on this point." Indeed, it cannot be 
easily imagined that God would create us for 
his worship, and yet give us no capacity to 
recognize his voice ; nor that in our sore need 
of a revelation from him, he would leave us 
without ability to distinguish that revelation, 
or to know the marks of divinity when they 
were present. Suffice it to say that the gen- 
eral consent of mankind admits the capacity 
of human powers to distinguish the divine. 
At any rate, they who deny the divinity of 
Christianity, do so since such a denial cannot 
be made without the implied claim that they 



Ch. l.] Weight of the Evidence. 115 

can distinguish between what is divine and 
what is not. What they claim for themselves 
they will probably not deny to others : the 
friends of Christianity distinctly claim it for 
all ; and therefore we assume that it will not 
be disputed by any that man has the capacity 
of recognizing the divine ; and we proceed to 
present the grounds of such a recognition in 
the Evidences of Christianity. 

The consideration, then, that will now en- 
gage our attention is the superhuman and di- 
vine character of the facts of Christ's personal 
history ; and under this general head, first, the 
coming of Christ into the world. This, we 
claim, was in all its circumstances of a char- 
acter truly superhuman and divine, and proves 
him to be a Divine Person, that took upon 
himself also the nature of man. To perceive 
this, let us consider — 

I. The careful preparation made for the advent 
of Christ. The introduction of Christianity 
(?;^ Van Oosterzee's "Dogmatics," pp. 458- 
585) was not fortuitous ; it did not spring up 
by chance, and without expectation or design, 
but after long and careful preparation. 

1st. Its announcement is made continually 
throughout the preceding ages — at first, at the 
very threshold of the history of fallen man, in 
the promise given to Adam, that "the seed 



116 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head" 
(Gen. iii. 15), and repeated in ever clearer terms, 
successively, to Abraham, " In thy seed shall 
all the nations of the earth be blessed" (Gen. 
xxii. 18) ; to Jacob, "The scepter shall not de- 
part from Judah . . . till Shiloh come " (Gen. 
xlix. 10) ; to Moses, " The Lord thy God shall 
raise up unto thee a Prophet . . . like unto 
me" (Deut. xviii. 15) ; and afterward to David, 
Isaiah, Malachi, etc., through a period of thou- 
sands of years. Abraham and his family, also, 
were set apart from all the nations of the earth, 
chiefly that there might be "a people prepared 
for the Lord; " and so, to prepare them, there 
were given for their discipline — (1) Their slav- 
ery in Egypt for four hundred years, which, 
by its oppressions, put them in opposition to 
heathendom, both historically and by cultivat- 
ing in their very hearts an abhorrence of it ; 
(2) the Mosaic system; (3) the reigns of the 
kings ; (4) the sending of the proj:>hets ; (5) 
the coming of the great Forerunner, John the 
Baptist. 

1. In the Mosaic dispensation, "the law was 
their school-master to bring them to Christ," 
exciting in them the notion of sin, and an ab- 
horrence of it, through the sacrifices and other 
ceremonies enjoined. These also had a pro- 
phetic meaning, and prefigured Christ, as did 



Ck i.] Weight of the Evidence. 117 

also the whole system of Moses.* Thus con- 
trition for sin was cultivated at the same time 
with the expectation of redemption among the 
Jews, while the miraculous deliverances expe- 
rienced from time to time in their history, by 
Israel, were intended also to be a revelation to 
the heathen world (vide Ex. xv. 14-16 ; Deut. 
ii. 25, etc.) of the existence, omnipotence, and 
will, of Jehovah. Thus the Mosaic dispensa- 
tion made ready both Jews and heathen for the 
coming of Christ. 

2. So also with the reigns of the kings. 
Under them the house of Judah, from which 
Christ was to arise, is brought forward in the 
sovereignty of David, and first occupies its 
leading position, while the existence of the 
kingdom itself points to the everlasting king- 
dom of the spiritual Israel and its everlasting 
King, its glory and dominion to the spiritual 
conquests of Christ; the Psalms of its great 
monarch David, meantime, minister to the 
spiritual elevation of the people, and add strik- 
ing prophecies of the coming Messiah (vide Ps. 
xvi. ; xxii. ; xl. ; lxix., etc.) ; and the great tem- 
ple created by David's son and successor, Sol- 

* " The entire Old Testament is one great Prediction, one 
great Type, of Him who should come." — Be Wette (quoted 
in Van Oosterzee's "Dogmatics"). Cf. whole Epistle to 
the Hebrews. 



118 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

omon, gives emphasis to all. And when at 
last, in the decline of the kingdom, there came; 
first the captivity in Babylon, and then the 
final fall under the Roman power, there was 
cultivated in the people a longing for that De- 
liverer who was to come, and for the predicted 
restoration and triumph of Israel ; so that we 
find in fact, that at the coming of Christ there 
were hol} r men and women actually " waiting 
for the Consolation of Israel." 

3. The prophets too, arising in a constant 
succession, from the time of Samuel to the re- 
turn from the captivity, by their work in edu- 
cating the people up to Christianity, directly 
prepared for the coming of Christ. For this 
purpose they dwelt upon the spirituality of 
God's law (vide Isa. i. 11-18; lviii. 1, etc.), and 
the universality of his kingdom (vide Hos. iii. 
4, 5 ; Isa. ii. 2-4, etc.), in contradiction of the 
formality and intense exclusiveness generally 
prevalent among the Jews, but in perfect con- 
formity to the gospel of Christ, both in its de- 
mands for inward purity and its extension of 
God's mercy to Gentiles as well as Jews. The 
prophets also prepared the way, with ever-in- 
creasing distinctness, for the acceptance of the 
true idea of the Messiah to come — of his char- 
acter, his life, and his work. (Cf., in the order 
of time in which thev were written, Joel ii. 28 



Ch. l.] Weight of the Evidence. 119 

-33; Mic. v. 1-4; Isa. vii. 4; ix. 1-6; xi. 1-10; 
liii. ; Jer. xxxi. 30-34; Dan. ii. 44; vii. 13, 14; 
Zech. vi. 12, 13; ix. 9; Hag. ii. 6-9; Mai. iii. 
1-4; v. 6.) Thus the prophecies were, for the 
contemporaries of the prophets, a source of in- 
struction, comfort, and strength ; for the con- 
temporaries of the Lord, the touch -stone by 
which they could recognize the Christ (vide 
John i. 45) ; and for the Christian Church they 
remain a great and enduring proof of the di- 
vinity of their religion, and the pledge that its 
promised salvation also will in the end be fully 
realized. 

4. Finally, the Forerunner, John, who was 
also the greatest of the prophets, was sent pur- 
posely to " prepare the way of the Lord." His 
character and life are fully attested not only by 
the Gospels, but also by Josephus, and cannot 
be doubted ; and they were most plainly adapt- 
ed to effect among the Jews the work of prepa- 
ration for Christ. The manner of his birth, his 
unexpected reappearance after his long-contin- 
ued silence in the wilderness, and his rigid and 
austere manner of life, all must have made a 
deep impression upon all who were " waiting 
for the Consolation of Israel." His preaching, 
in its denunciation of the sins of the people, in 
its announcement of Him that " was to come" 
and His glory, and, at length, in its directly 



120 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

pointing out among the people the " Lamb of 
God," opened the way to thousands to receive 
Christ; while his baptism of Christ was this 
public and formal "manifestation" of him to 
Israel; and afterward, even his premature 
death, and his influence after death, helped 
on the work of Christ. ( Vide Luke vii. 29, 30 ; 
Acts xix. 1-6.) 

2d. Within heathendom also the work of 
preparation had been going on. 1. God had 
already given to the heathen that general rev- 
elation which everywhere appears in the works 
of nature, the teachings of history, and by the 
inward voice of conscience, testifying, as they 
do, to the existence of God, his rule, and his 
justice. The appearance and labors of such 
great men among them as Pythagoras, Socra- 
tes, Plato, Seneca, etc., by which the lessons ca- 
pable of being drawn forth from those sources 
were deduced and disseminated, tended un- 
mistakably to bring about not merely a moral 
but a truly religious civilization, and thus to 
prepare for Christianity. But the diversity 
of views which existed among them, their own 
uncertainty in the most important matters, 
the incompleteness of the best of their sys- 
tems, their lack of authority, their inability 
to adapt their teachings to the capacity of the 
general mass of men, and the small practical 



Ch. l.] Weight of the Evidence. 121 

effect of those teachings on the lives of even 
the philosophers themselves and their few dis- 
ciples, all called forth a deep longing for supe- 
rior guidance — for light from above, such as it 
was evident no philosopher or priest could kin- 
dle for the enlightenment of men — and thus 
again heathendom was prepared for the recep- 
tion of Christ, the " Light of the world ; " and 
in remarkable accordance with this, we find the 
traces of an expectation of salvation from the 
East (cf. Plato, Alcibiades, book 2, and De Re- 
pub., II.; the myth of Prometheus; Virgil's 
Fourth Eclogue; Tacitus, Ann., 5, 13, etc.). 
2. Especially by Israel had God prepared the 
Gentile world. Their wonderful national deliv- 
erances, widely known as they were to other 
nations, and their journeyings (vide Ex. xv. 
6 ; Josh. ii. 10 ; ix. 24) ; their exile for seven- 
ty years in Babylon (vide Daniel) ; the work 
of some of their prophets in foreign countries 
(vide 1 Kings xvii. ; 2 Kings v. ; Jonah ; Dan- 
iel ; Jer. xxxvii. 7-9 ; xxxix. 15-18, etc.) ; their 
dispersion into Egypt, Babylon, Syria, Greece, 
and Rome ; above all, their Holy Scriptures, 
in the Greek translation especially, scattered 
far and wide over the heathen world — all these 
had carried the knowledge of the truth through- 
out the nations, and had prepared them for the 
coming of Christ. 3. The subjection of a great 
* 6 



122 Positive Evidences. [p ar t II. 

part of the world to Rome had broken down 
the walls of separation that had existed be- 
tween the nations, and thus made it compara- 
tively easy to carry the gospel from land to 
land. The Greek language, moreover, in which 
the Gospels were written, had spread over the 
world, and become a kind of universal lan- 
guage, and thus again the rapid and universal 
spread of the Scriptures was made easy. So 
that just at the time when the world, weary 
and miserable with the ills of the times and 
the helplessness of humanity, instinctively 
longed for the Christ, and even looked for the 
approach from the East, there coincided with 
them the greatest means and facilities for his 
coming, and for the propagation of his truth.* 

* Thus Van Oosterzee, from whom the above is substan- 
tially though not altogether literally quoted. So Westcott 
(Introduction, etc., ch. i.), who still more elaborately pre- 
sents the same views, in showing how the Jews, by the va- 
rious changes in their history, had become fitted to propa- 
gate a universal gospel, while simultaneous corresponding 
changes in heathendom fitted the heathen nations to receive 
it, says : " The several phases of partial and independent 
development were now completed. Judaism had now ex- 
isted in the face of the most varied nationalities, and had 
gained an elasticity of shape without losing its distinctness 
of principle. . . . Conquest swept away gradually the 
barriers by which the world was divided ; . . . the power 
of paganism everywhere gave way ; . . . the old tem- 
ples were deserted, and the speculations of philosophy had 



Ch. l.] Weight of the Evidence. 123 

The " fullness of time" had come, and Christ 
comes "the center of history, the pivot on which 
the whole plan of God moves." His greatness, 
his indispensability to man becomes apparent, 
while the utter failure of all the greatest of 
human efforts disposes the nations to embrace 
him as their only hope. 

II. From all this we argue that the advent 
of Christ was supernatural and divine. We 
next assert it from the evidence of prophecy. 
Prophecy is " a miracle of knowledge, and the 
highest evidence that can be given of a reve- 
lation from God" (Home). If, then, we can 
show that there were prophecies of the coming 
of Christ existing long prior to that event, we 
must admit that his coming had something 
about it that was supernatural and divine. 
Such prophecies existed. It is disputed by no 
one that the whole of the Old Testament ex- 
isted at least as early as B.C. 265, at or before 
which time the Greek translation of it, called the 
Septuagint, was undoubtedly made. But the 
Old Testament, existing thus at least two and a 

all led to blank skepticism. . . . But Greece had left a 
universal literature and language, Rome had founded a 
universal empire. . . . There was a vague presentiment 
that a new period was near. . . . And in the East that 
hope rested. A missionary nation [the Jews] was [thus] 
waiting to be charged with the heavenly commission, and 
a world was unconsciously prepared to welcome it." 



124 Positive Evidences. 



[Part II. 



half centuries — or as long as the first settle- 
ment of the United States to the present time 
— before Christ, contains many predictions of 
his coming, his character, his life, and his 
death. In them are predicted some things 
seemingly very unlikely, and in a complicated 
and connected series of events. They are, 
moreover, predicted not all by a single indi- 
vidual, but some by one and some by another 
prophet — at long intervals of time and place — 
in a comparatively rude and ignorant age and 
nation. And they are numerous — so numer- 
ous, indeed, that we have not here space to 
refer even to all, nor to any at length. The 
following, however, may suffice to show the 
wonderful nature of these prophecies, fulfilled, 
as a comparison of the Gospel history will 
show they were, minutely and exactly so many 
years afterward. 1. It was predicted (Gen. 
xlix. 10) that Christ should come before the 
scepter should " depart from Juclah," and 
(Hag. ii. 6-9 ; Mai. iii. 1) before the destruction 
of the second temple. And, accordingly, our 
Lord came just when the Romans did utterly 
take away the government from the tribe of 
Judah ; and he preached in that temple which 
about forty years afterward was totally de- 
stroyed. 2. It was foretold that he should be 
born in the town of Bethlehem, and of the 



Ch. 1.3 Weight of the Evidence. 125 

tribe of Judah (Micah v. 2) ; of a virgin (Isa. 
vii. 14) ; and of the family of David (Isa. ix. 
6, 7 ; xi. 1, 2). 3. Also, that he would he with- 
out outward power or influence to attach the 
world to himself (Isa. liii. 1-3) ; and " a stone 
of stumbling and an offense " (Isa. viii. 14, 15); 
yet the chief corner-stone of the Church (Isa. 
xxxviii. 16) ; and that upon this rock the Jews 
should fall, and be broken to pieces (Isa. viii. 
14, 15). Again, that he should preach the 
gospel to the poor, instruct the Gentiles, and 
heal the blind and the sick (Isa. vi. 9-11 ; xliii. 
1, etc.) ; that he should give himself a ransom 
for many, be numbered with the transgressors, 
be mocked, and scorned, and rejected of men, 
yet make his grave with the rich in his death 
(Isa. liii.). Moreover, he was not to lie in the 
grave, nor see corruption (Ps. xvi. 10) ; but 
to rise again on the third day (Hos. vi. 2; cf. 
with Matt. xx. 19, etc.) ; and to ascend into 
heaven, and there reign at his Father's right- 
hand with universal dominion (Ps. xvi. 11 ; 
lxviii. 18; Isa. ix. 7). 

All these were perfectly fulfilled by our 
Saviour, and he and his apostles continually 
appealed to their fulfillment, before the unbe- 
lieving Jews, as the evidence that he was their 
promised Messiah. It is evident that if either 
no such prophecies had before existed among 



126 Positive Evidences. [p ar t II. 

the Jews, or if the facts of his birth, life, and 
death, had at all deviated from these prophe- 
cies, the Jews, those bitter enemies of Chris- 
tianity, would instantly have exposed the im- 
posture, and at once and forever have silenced 
its advocates. But they could not, and these 
wonderful prophecies remain, with their fulfill- 
ment, an unanswerable evidence of the superhu- 
man and divine nature of the coming of Christ. 
III. His miraculous conception and birth 
by a virgin attests it. For this great fact we 
have the evidence not only of the prophecy 
already cited, and also the testimony of the 
writers of the New Testament, but still farther 
the personal testimony of Mary and of Christ. 
That of Mary was impliedly given, since no 
contradiction of it by her appears in the Gos- 
pels ; and, doubtless, given expressly also, 
since from no one else could the account of the 
circumstances of his birth at first have become 
known. And Christ did so testify, not only 
impliedly, but substantially in express terms, 
asserting that he " came down from heaven 
... to do the will of Him that sent me" 
(John vi. 38) ; that he was " the living Bread 
which came down from heaven," and asking 
the unbelieving Jews, "What and if ye shall 
see the Son of man ascend up where he was 
before?" (id., vs. 51, 62, etc.). This testimony 



Ch. i.] Weight of the Evidence. 127 

is of the greatest weight. In fact, if his birth 
was not thus miraculous, then we must be- 
lieve, on the other hand — awful conclusion as 
it is, and such as few infidels even have ever 
ventured to advance — that Mary was both an 
impudent, shameless woman, and an author of 
falsehoods, and that of the most tremendous 
blasphemy; and that Christ was the son of 
impurity, and himself an utterer of falsehood 
and blasphemy. And yet we are to believe 
that Christ, though of such origin, and nur- 
tured by such a woman, and himself, speaking 
lies, was yet what he is now, as we shall see, 
acknowledged by all to have been — the one 
Perfect Man of all the earth, upon whose un- 
approachable superiority of life and teaching 
was founded the Christian Church — incompar- 
ably the purest and most powerful agency for 
good that has ever appeared. In the utter 
impossibility of this, the only alternative, and 
in the absence of even the charge of such dar- 
ing deceit and impiety, on the testimony of the 
Scriptures, of Mary, and of Christ, the com- 
mon principles of evidence demand that we 
admit the fact as proved. And this fact, to- 
gether with those of the prophecies of, and the 
preparation made for, the coming of Christ into 
the world, prove that that coming was in a man- 
ner that was truly supernatural and divine. 



128 Positive Evidences. [p ar t II. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE SUPERHUMAN CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 

We next inquire concerning the moral charac- 
ter of Christ, and ask whether it corresponds 
to such a claim, and possesses such traits, as 
confirm his divine descent. We expect, if a 
man claims to be of uncommonly superior ori- 
gin, to find evidence of the fact not only from 
the external testimonies he may bring us, but 
also in the man himself — in his appearance, his 
manners, his characteristics of mind and dispo- 
sition. Much more is this the case if he who 
presents himself before us asserts that he is 
sprung from a race of beings superior to men 
— an angel, or from a God. If, on examination 
of the actions and words narrated of him, we 
found the same human imperfections as are 
common to man, we should at once decide that 
his claim was false. The test is a proper one, 
and by it we can rightly decide the falsity of 
the pretensions of all the heroes of the pagan 
religions (as Hercules, etc.) to divine descent. 
The histories given of them show them to pos- 
sess the common frailties of humanity, and in 
most, if not all, cases to possess also its gross- 



Ch. 2.] Weight of the Evidence. 129 

est vices. Probably the inventors of their his- 
tories would have made them better if they 
could ; but it is an old observation, illustrated 
by the literature of every country, that human 
powers cannot paint a portrait above the hu- 
man in beauty of moral character. The stream 
cannot rise above its source ; imperfection will 
cling to this, as to every other work of human 
skill ; without a previous revelation of such a 
superhuman being, there will have been no 
model from which to draw ; and the authors, 
though they be the Homers and Virgils of 
imagination and invention, must leave their 
heroes marred by many a fault, and even their 
heavenly gods and goddesses disfigured with 
many an impurity and imperfection. We have 
a right, then, to expect, if Christ is divine, that 
his character and life shall appear, evidently, 
to be above all that is merely human. 

On the other hand, we are just as much 
bound, in truth and honesty, to acknowledge 
his divinity if we do find his character thus 
to be superior to all that is human. The one 
duty is as clear and obligatory as the other. 
If the skeptic has the right to demand, for 
the establishment of Christ's divinity, that we 
bring forth in proof his possession of a super- 
human character, it is surely our right, when 
that proof has been produced, to demand un- 
6* 



130 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

hesitating assent to the fact so established by 
its evidence. 

What, then, are the characteristic traits of 
Christ's moral nature? Are they such as, 
marked by the imperfections universal to 
mere human nature, show that he too was no 
more than man ? Or are they free from all 
blemish ? and perfect in nature and in variety 
of attributes, do they proclaim One who was 
himself perfect — One far removed above mere 
imperfect humanity — One who was truly di- 
vine? For reply we have the history of his 
life, given by four different authors, in the 
Gospels of the New Testament Scriptures. In 
them his character is simply, but very com- 
pletely, delineated. He is presented to us un- 
der the most trying circumstances conceivable 
— of the most various kinds, and of the greatest 
number. The very mission, so unique and so 
great, which he undertook, at once exposed him 
to the severest scrutiny, and from its very nat- 
ure made success to be most difficult to attain. 
Claiming to be the long-promised Messiah of 
the Jews, he had to fulfill not only the circum- 
stances of birth, origin, etc., predicted of the 
Messiah's life, but also the various traits of 
character foretold of Him that was to come. 
Claiming to be perfectly holy, he had to ex- 
hibit unspotted sanctity of life. Claiming to 



Ch. 2.] Weight of the Evidence. 131 

be divine, he had to display superhuman wis- 
dom, and power, and goodness. Yet the Gos- 
pels exhibit him, for more than three years of 
his life, under the most trying circumstances, 
wholly unmarred by a single shadow of im- 
perfection. Standing in the most diverse and 
changing relations with foes and friends, with 
relatives and strangers, with the common peo- 
ple and the most learned, with Jews and Sa- 
maritans, with Greeks, and Romans, and Syr- 
ians — in contact with all kinds of life, in the 
country, the city, the desert, and upon the sea 
— before the populace and before judges, in 
peace and in conflict, at rest and at labor, in 
sorrow and in joy, at the feast and at the buri- 
al, in triumph amid the acclamations of the 
multitude as he entered a King into Jerusa- 
lem, and on trial for his life before Caiaphas 
and before Pilate — ministered to by loving 
women, and scourged by the soldier's lash — at 
Bethany and upon Calvary : in all these he is 
presented to us under almost every conceiv- 
able circumstance; and yet, neither when 
harassed by enemies, nor when relaxed in the 
presence of ministering and adoring friends, 
does either his wisdom or his goodness ever 
forsake him, or betray the faintest sign of any 
imperfection. Neither vanity on one side, nor 
bitterness on the other ; neither worldly am- 



132 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

bition nor any thirst for revenge ; no taint of 
impurity, falsehood, selfishness, or hate, nor, 
withal, the least diminution of dignity and re- 
spect for self, was ever beheld. In all he stood 
alone ; perfect and entire, he towered far above 
all that is merely human, and remained un- 
touched and unreached by human weakness or 
human infirmity. He was divine. 

To illustrate this by examples drawn from 
his history would occupy more space than can 
here be afforded ; to fully show it, it would be 
necessary to consider every incident and all 
his words and actions, and transcribe, with 
comments, the whole of the Gospels. Mani- 
festly, nothing like this can be appropriate 
here. We can only refer the reader to that 
Life generally, and challenge the severest crit- 
icism to find one blemish therein. Hitherto 
his most acute and bitter enemies have failed 
to find one ; but many, as we shall see, have 
been forced to testify in his favor. With that 
fact before us, Ave add, as sufficient additional 
proof of what we claim, the following evidence: 

1. Man never before even imagined such a 
character ; nor is it possible to imagine one su- 
perior. Neither (cf. Rogers's "Supernatural 
Origin of the Bible") in Greek, nor Roman, nor 
Jewish, nor any other history or literature, can 
there be found the elements of another such 



Ch. 2.] Weight of the Evidence. 133 

character, real or fictitious. Man never has 
painted, and never can paint, another such a 
One, by whom the challenge may safely be 
given, "Which of you convinceth me of sin?" 
In his practical goodness, in his intellectual 
greatness, and in his self-abnegation, Christ 
surpasses all the ideals of men, as in his work 
he has exceeded their greatest heroes in prac- 
tical importance to the world. In an age of 
unexampled corruption, a moral standard was 
erected by One Man — a Jewish peasant, con- 
victed and executed as a felon — which has been 
un approached before and since, and which we 
cannot even conceive it possible to be excelled. And 
still more remarkable, if possible, this has not 
been in vain, but has been ever since, and still 
is, the mightiest moral agent for good to be 
found among men. 

2. His divine character is proved from the 
superhuman influence for good that he has 
exerted. To quote substantially from Row 
(Bampton Lectures, 1877), " Present facts, no 
less than the unquestionable facts of history, 
prove that Christ stands on an elevation 
which, among the sons of men, is solitary and 
alone. Our experience of man, extending over 
at least three thousand years, with ample op- 
portunity of observation, enables us to know 
well what is in man, and what man's powers 



134 Positive Evidences. 



[Part II. 



can accomplish: if therefore the greatness of 
Christ were the result of their activity, it is 
clear that during this long interval of time 
they must have produced other men at least 
approaching his greatness. 

"The life of Christianity consists, most re- 
markably and absolutely uniquely, in the his- 
tory of man — not in a body of moral precepts 
or dogmas, a ritual, or a system of philosophy, 
but in a personal history. We may take from 
Brahmanism, Buddhism, Mohammedanism, or 
any of the philosophical, political, or social 
systems that have ever existed among men, 
or from any of the various sects even in the 
Christian Church, the personal history of their 
founders, and yet they would remain, substan- 
tially unaffected, the same as before. But if 
from Christianity we take the personal history 
of Christ, his life, death, and resurrection, we 
take from it its all. No other system has ever 
pretended to be founded on a Person, and the 
events of that Person's life, instead of a body 
of dogmatic statements. But the supreme at- 
tractiveness of the Person of the Founder of 
Christianity has imparted to the Church the 
whole of its vitality. To this fact all history 
bears witness. Nor is its testimony less cer- 
tain that, of all the influences that have been 
exerted in this earth, that of Jesus has been 



Ch. 2.] Weight of the Evidence. 135 

the most potent. Enumerate all the great 
men who have ever existed, whether they be 
kings, conquerors, statesmen, poets, philoso- 
phers, or men of science, and their influence 
for good will be found to be as nothing com- 
pared with that which has been exerted by 
Jesus Christ.* . . . He who was in outward 
form a Galilean peasant, who died a malefac- 
tor's death, has founded a spiritual empire 
which has endured for eighteen centuries of 
time, and which, despite the vaticination of 
unbelievers, shows no sign of decrepitude. 
Commencing with the smallest beginnings, his 
empire now embraces all the progressive races 
of men. Those by whom it has not been ac- 
cepted are in a state of stagnation and decay. 
It is the only one which is adapted to every 
state of civilization. It differs from all other 
states and communities in that it is founded 
neither on force nor self-interest, but on per- 
suasion and the supreme attractiveness of the 
character of its Founder. The holiest of men 
have bowed before him with the supremest 
reverence, and have accepted him as a King 

* The acknowledgment of Napoleon, on St. Helena, will 
here be remembered, when, comparing the littleness of his 
own dominion, already past, and those also of Alexander, 
Caesar, etc., with the wide extension and durability of that 
of Christ, he declared that Christ alone was divine. 



136 Positive Evidences. [p ar t II. 

who is entitled to reign by right of inherent 
worthiness, and with the greater eagerness in 
proportion to their holiness" (pp. 93, 94). 

3. We farther adduce the testimon}^ of his 
opposers. The one catholic man, the one ideal 
of humanity, even his enemies are forced to 
praise him. The skeptical historian, Lecky 
("History of Morals," Vol. II., ch. 8), says: 
; 'It was reserved for Christianity to present 
to the world an ideal character which, through 
all the changes of eighteen centuries, has filled 
the hearts of men with an impassioned love, 
and has shown itself capable of acting on all 
ages, nations, temperaments, and conditions; 
has not only been the highest pattern of vir- 
tue, but the highest incentive to its practice, 
and has exerted so deep an influence that it 
may be truly said that the simple record of 
three short years of active life has done more 
to regenerate and to soften mankind than all 
the disquisitions of philosophers, and than all 
the exhortations of moralists. This has indeed 
been the well-spring of whatever has been 
best and purest in the Christian life. Amid 
all the sins and failings, amid all the priest- 
craft, the persecution, and fanaticism which 
have defaced Christianity, it has preserved in 
the character and the example of its Founder 
an enduring principle of regeneration." 



C&. 2.] Weight of the Evidence. 137 

But, argues Row, what other character, real 
or ideal, among men, has (1) "for eighteen 
centuries filled the hearts of men with an im- 
jDassioned love?" Has Socrates, Zoroaster, or 
Mohammed ? or any ideal character, even the 
greatest, of Homer, or Virgil, or Shakespeare? 
(2) What other has thus "acted on all ages, 
nations, and temperaments?" Has Shakes- 
peare? Who is impelled to self-sacrifice for 
the love of Shakespeare? (3) Or, who else 
has " presented the highest pattern of virtue ? " 
(4) Or, in himself is " the highest incentive 
to its practice?" (5) Or, has ever been "an 
enduring principle of regeneration" to his sys- 
tem? Has any heathen? any apostle even? 
or any Father of the Church? Nay, Christ 
alone has been able to accomplish such things. 
All others, even the very best, of all ages and 
nations together, have-not been able to equal 
him. Can it be doubted that he is divine ? 

Again, " In Christ," says Chubb, an avowed 
infidel, "we have an example of a quiet and 
peaceable spirit, just, honest, upright, and sin- 
cere, and, above all, of a most gracious temper 
and behavior — one who did no injury to any 
man, in whose mouth there was no guile, who 
went about doing good. His life was a beau- 
tiful picture of human nature in its native 
purity and simplicity, and showed at once 



138 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

what excellent creatures men would be when 
under the influence and power of that gospel 
which he preached unto them." Again, Rous- 
seau exclaims, "What sweetness, what purity 
in his manners ! What an affecting graceful- 
ness in his delivery ! What sublimity in his 
maxims ! What profound wisdom in his dis- 
courses ! What presence of mind in his re- 
plies ! How great the command over the 
passions ! Where is the man, where is the 
philosopher, who could so live and so die with- 
out weakness and without ostentation ? . . . 
Shall we suppose the evangelic history a mere 
fiction? Indeed, my friend, it bears not the 
marks of fiction. On the contrary, the history 
of Socrates, which nobody presumes to doubt, 
is not so well attested as that of Jesus Christ. 
Such a supposition, in fact, only shifts the dif- 
ficulty without removing it; for it is more 
inconceivable that a number of persons should 
agree to write such a history than that only 
one should furnish the subject of it. The 
Jewish authors were incapable of the diction, 
and were strangers to the morality, contained 
in the gospel, the marks of whose truth are 
so striking and inimitable that the inventor 
would be a more astonishing character than 
the hero." Finally, we add the testimony of 
one of the most intellectual of unbelievers, 



Ch. 2.] Weight of the Evidence. 139 

John Stuart Mill. He says ("Three Essays "), 
"It is the God Incarnate more than the God 
of the Jews who, being idealized, has taken 
so great and salutary a hold on the modern 
mind. And whatever else may be taken away 
from us by rational criticism, Christ is still 
left — a unique figure not more unlike all his 
predecessors than all his followers." 

Such testimony from witnesses so incapable 
of partiality toward Christianity, and so capa- 
ble intellectually of correct judgment, could 
have been called forth only by the superhuman 
and irresistible beauty and grandeur of the 
character of Christ. In itself it is a strong 
proof of his divinity, and, together with the 
preceding evidences to the same fact, is a suf- 
ficient proof. " The forces which energize in 
the moral and spiritual world act in conform- 
ity with the moral laws no less than those 
which dominate in the physical universe do 
with physical laws ; and therefore an event in 
the moral universe, of the origin of which the 
forces energizing in man can give no account, 
is a moral miracle." — Bow. We know from uni- 
versal history and literature what the "forces 
energizing in man" can produce of human 
character and human life ; we have seen how 
impossible it is for them to produce such an- 
other character and life as that of Christ ; and 



140 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

we must conclude, therefore, that his appear- 
ance upon the stage of human history was "an 
event in the moral universe, of the origin of 
which the forces energizing in man can give 
no account " — " a moral miracle " — and proves 
him to be superhuman and divine. 

This might be justly thought to be sufficient; 
but we farther cite, in connection with this sub- 
ject— 

4. The testimony of Christ to himself. In 
doing this, we violate no rule of evidence. His 
enemies being judges, we have found him to 
be irreproachably holy, supremely great, and 
spotlessly true. His testimony, then, is wor- 
thy to be received, and to be fully credited. 
Besides, such evidence is now everywhere ad- 
mitted. By a late and very proper change in 
jurisprudence (cf. Princeton Pevieiv, July, 1878, 
p. 154, etc.), the testimony of parties in inter- 
est is now generally received. The weight of 
their testimony is left to be decided according 
to each one's credibility, his disinterestedness, 
conscientiousness, and intellectual ability; and 
this is felt to be right, inasmuch as otherwise 
the very parties who alone could know best 
about the matter in question, though of the 
highest integrity, are excluded. 

But it is allowed on all hands, as we have 
seen, that Christ, in all the qualities of great- 



Ch. 2.] Weight of the Evidence. 141 

ness of intellect, perfect uprightness of life, 
and purity of heart, is wholly unapproached 
by any other who has ever lived on earth. 
His testimony, then, upon the common princi- 
ples of evidence, though given in reference to 
himself, his divine origin, and his mission, is 
entitled to the very greatest weight. As such 
we cite it in support of his divinity, and ask 
candid attention to the following, among oth- 
erSj of his words and acts : 

1. He acquiesced without denial in Nicode- 
mus's declaration, that he was "a teacher come 
from God" (John iii. 2); 2. He directly de- 
clared to the Samaritan woman that he was 
"Messias " (John iv. 26) ; 3. He " made himself 
equal with God" (John vi. 35, 38); 4. He as- 
serted that he had "come down from heaven" 
(John vi. 35, 38) ; 5. That he was the source 
of everlasting life to men (John vi. 47-56); 
6. He assented to the declaration that he was 
" Christ the Son of the living God" (John vi. 
68, 69); 7. And declared that he "proceedeth 
forth, and came from God " (John viii. 42) ; 8. 
And that "before Abraham was, I am" (John 
viii. 58) ; 9. That "I and my Father are one," 
and "the Father is in me, and I in him "(John 
x. 30, 38) ; "As the Father knoweth me, even 
so know I the Father" (John x. 15); and "/ 
give unto them eternal life" (John x. 28); 10. 



142 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

He "knew that he was come from God, and 
went to God" (John xiii. 3) ; 11. Commanded 
his disciples, "Ye believe in God, believe also 
in me" (John xiv. 1); 12. Said that "he that 
hath seen me hath seen the Father" (John xiv. 
9) ; 13. Acknowledged himself to be the "Son 
of God" (Luke xxii. 70; cf. also parallel pas- 
sages) ; 14. And said to the disciples, "Receive 
ye the Holy Ghost" at the same time breathing 
upon them, and imparting him to them. 

This and such like testimony he repeatedly 
gave of himself. Now, either he was willfully 
a false witness, or mistaken, or else his testi- 
mony was true. If false, then was he the most 
awfully perjured and blasphemous man, and 
the most injurious to his race of all that have 
ever lived; if mistaken, then the most de- 
ceived. But we see that even unbelievers ac- 
knowledge him to be, far above all comparison, 
both the most profound in intellect and the 
most holy in life of all men. The only rational 
explanation, then, of his testimony — the only 
possible solution consistent both with his char- 
acter and with all the circumstances of his life 
— is that it was true, and that he was really 
divine ; and we therefore add this evidence of 
his own testimony of himself, to prove what we 
claim for him — that in his very character he 
also evidently appears to be divine. 



Ch. 3.] Weight of the Evidence. 143 



CHAPTER III. 

THE SUPERHUMAN TEACHING OF CHRIST — I. 
ITS REASONABLENESS. 

Next we call attention to the teaching of 
Christ, as exhibiting, in its unrivaled wisdom, 
fullness, and power, a character utterly un- 
known to that of any other teacher that has 
ever appeared — proving thereby that it is more 
than human, and is, as it claims to be, divine. 
We have already seen, in the First Part of 
this work, how confessedly imperfect and un- 
satisfying have been the reasonings of all, even 
the greatest of, merely human moralists and 
philosophers. In the most striking contrast 
stands the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth. 
"Never man spake like this man." There is 
nowhere any appearance or shadow of folly or 
mistake, but always the profoundest wisdom. 
There is nowhere any incompleteness or un- 
certainty, but in every thing unfathomable 
fullness, perfect sufficiency, and the most con- 
fident assurance ; and among no people, with 
no class of men or women, and under no cir- 
cumstances of life, whether of age or youth, of 
adversity or prosperity, of barbarism or of the 



144 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

highest and most complicated civilization, has 
his teaching ever ceased to exercise, through 
all the centuries since first it was given to the 
world, its wonderful power to elevate and en- 
noble the human heart. 

"A hundred years ago a distinguished com- 
pany of eminent men was assembled in a draw- 
ing-room in Paris. Again, as it was customary 
in that circle, Holy Scripture had been the 
general drudge; from all sides the sharp and 
envenomed arrows of mockery were aimed at 
it. At once one of the boldest among these 
free-thinkers — the famous Diderot — rose from 
his seat, and, to the general amazement of the 
company, said: 'All right, gentlemen, all right! 
I am ready to declare all of you clever writers 
and competent judges, and few in France or 
abroad would be able to speak or write better 
than you do. But still, notwithstanding all 
the evil we have just been saying about this 
accursed Book, and which, no doubt, serves it 
right, still I think I might defy any of you to 
compose an historical tale so ingenious, and at 
the same time so sublime, so touching, and fit 
to produce such a deep and lasting influence 
for centuries to come, as the Gospel relation 
of Christ's sufferings and death.' No wonder 
an unwonted but most significant silence fol- 
lowed." This story — given by Van Oosterzee, 



Ch. 3.] Weight of the Evidence. 145 

in an article in the Princeton 'Review of July, 
1878, the truth of which there seems no reason 
to doubt — serves to bring out in measurable 
relief the superhuman character of the Gos- 
pels. For what author has ever written, or 
will dare to pretend he could write, any his- 
tory rivaling it ? But what is beyond human 
achievement is superhuman, and therefore we 
claim that the gospel is divine. 

To prove this at large, let us compare the 
main teachings of Christianity, first with those 
of the leading philosophers both of ancient and 
modern times, and next with the known consti- 
tution and course of nature, manifested in the 
ordinary course of things in the world around 
us. In their agreement with both of these, we 
shall see their entire reasonableness ; in their 
analogy to the latter, we shall behold the evi- 
dence that the same all-wise and all-powerful 
Creator, who is nature's Maker, is also the Au- 
thor of Christianity; and in their incompara- 
ble superiority to the teachings of both philos- 
ophers and nature, we shall see that they are 
superhuman and divine. 

I. A sufficient view (Part I., Ch. 3) of th® 
defects and vices of all the schemes of the phi- 
losophers has already been shown. No such 
imperfections have ever been pointed out in 
the teachings of Christ ; and from this single 
7 



146 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

superiority of being free from the human in- 
firmity everywhere else apparent, we might 
justly claim that it is divine. But this is still 
more strikingly apparent in the superiority it 
manifests when compared, not with the defects, 
but with the best achievements of their rea- 
sonings. To show that it does possess such a 
superiority is not difficult, and to do so will be 
our duty before leaving this part of our gen- 
eral subject. First, however, it is proper to 
show that Christianity is in entire agreement 
with reason and nature, and therefore consist- 
ent with divine wisdom ; afterward we shall 
consider its superiority to both. 

The agreement of the doctrines taught by 
Christ with reason is proved by their accord- 
ance with the conclusions of the greatest rea- 
soners, both ancient and modern, that have 
ever lived. To see this distinctly, let us briefly 
recall what are the principal truths that were 
taught by Christ. 

These may be stated to consist in : 1. The 
unity of God. 2. The depravity of man. 3. 
The immortality of the soul ; together with the 
following, given by Coleridge ("Aids to Reflec- 
tion," p. 146), as peculiar to Christianity alone, 
viz. : 4. " That a mean of salvation has been 
effected and provided for the human race by 
the incarnation of the Son of God in the per- 



Ch. 3. J Weight of the Eoidence. 147 

son of Jesus Christ, and that his life on earth, 
his sufferings, death, and resurrection, are not 
only proofs and manifestations, but likewise 
essential and effective parts, of the great re- 
demptive act, whereby also the obstacle from 
the corruption of our nature is rendered no 
longer insurmountable. 5. That the appropri- 
ation of this benefit is possible by repentance 
and faith, including the aids that render an 
effective faith and repentance themselves pos- 
sible. 6. That there is a reception (by as many 
as shall he heirs of salvation) of a living and 
spiritual principle, a seed of life, capable of 
surviving this natural life, and of existing in 
a divine and immortal state. 7. That there is 
an awakening of the spirit in them that truly 
believe, and a communion of that spirit thus 
awakened with the Holy Spirit. 8. That there 
are accompanying and consequent gifts, graces, 
comforts, and privileges of the Spirit, which, 
acting primarily of the heart and will, cannot 
but manifest themselves in suitable works of 
love and obedience — that is, in right acts, with 
right affections, from right principles. 9. That 
these works are the appointed signs and evi- 
dences of our faith, and that, under limitation 
of the powers, the means, and the opportuni- 
ties afforded us individually, they are the rule 
and measure bv which we are bound and en- 



148 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

abled to judge of what spirit we are. 10. That 
God beholds us, and will finally judge us with 
a merciful consideration of our infirmities, a 
gracious acceptance of our sincere though im- 
perfect strivings, and a forgiveness of our de- 
fects, through the mediation of the man Christ 
Jesus, even the Word, that was in the begin- 
ning with God, and who, being God, became 
[also] man for the redemption of mankind." 

1st. That the doctrines of Christianity are 
reasonable, appears from their very nature. 
"This world [vide Wayland's " Moral Science"] 
is a universe governed by law ; if by physical 
laws, then by moral law also, since the world 
of morals has its existence and laws in the 
universe as well as the physical world. Their 
violation, then, must as certainly be visited 
with retribution as that of physical laws, some- 
time and somehow. Therefore, since such ret- 
ribution often does not happen here, it must 
hereafter ; therefore there is a future life, and 
that life is retributive." Again, "The obliga- 
tion of supreme love to God is reasonable : 
1. He is our Creator and Preserver. 2. He 
unites within himself every perfection that 
can possibly exist. 3. His creative power and 
his infinite wisdom have been exerted for the 
production of our best good. 4. Therefore he 
has the right over us of unlimited possession. 



Ch. 3.] Weight of the Ecidence. 149 

5. And of our highest love and gratitude. 6. 
Therefore, since the universe is governed by 
law, we can attain happiness only by discharg- 
ing those obligations (since the violation of 
every law or duty is attended with punish- 
ment). 7. Or mutually render each other hap- 
py, since to do so it is necessary for all to be 
under the control of a supreme Power, and to 
fulfill the law of love to each other. 

"The duty of prayer also is evident. For, 
1. We are powerless, ignorant of the future, 
dependent, and miserably sinful. 2. We con- 
tinually receive blessings from Grod, to whom 
we should also render continual thanks. 3. 
Its exercise is necessary to our well-being here, 
since the temper and frame of mind (as peni- 
tence, faith, devotion, etc.) it must imply and 
exercise is essential to our progress in virtue. 
Those of benevolence, of justice, of truth, of 
chastity, and of filial obedience, are no less 
apparent ; while those also of the Sabbath, of 
hearing the word of God, of public worship, 
etc., are not difficult to be seen." 

This reasoning, drawn from a modern mor- 
alist, to whose conclusions, however, no one 
without the light of revelation ever attained 
with any certainty, fullness, or consistency, 
shows the reasonableness of Christianity in 
the nature of the case itself. 



150 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

2d. The agreement of the deductions of some 
of the greatest intellects of the human race 
with the doctrines of Christianity show that 
the latter are not contrary to reason, but whol- 
ly reasonable, and worthy of our acceptance. 
From among the many illustrious thinkers 
who might be brought forward to prove, by 
their writings, this agreement, our space per- 
mits us here to cite only those that are great- 
est — Plato and Aristotle among the ancients, 
and Descartes, Locke, and Hunt, among the 
moderns. 

1. Plato-teaches (vide Ueberweg's " History 
of Philosophy," sections 41 and 43) that " The 
highest object of knowledge is the Idea of the 
Good. This Idea is supreme, and the cause of 
all truth and beauty. Every thing which ex- 
ists, and is knowable, has received from God, 
ivho is the Idea of the Good, its existence and 
ability to be known, because he knew that it 
was better that it should exist than that it 
should not exist." He also teaches that the 
world must have had a beginning (vide Tim., 
pages 28, 29): " God's goodness is the reason 
of the construction of the world, and being 
therefore without envy, he planned all things 
so that they should be as nearly as possible 
like himself." The soul is immortal ; the high- 
est good is not pleasure, nor knowledge alone, 



Ch. 3.] Weight of the Evidence. 151 

but the greatest possible likeness to God, as the ab- 
solutely good ; and the possession of that good 
is happiness. Most striking is the resem- 
blance of the picture he draws of the purely 
righteous to the character and life of our Lord 
(De Repub., 360, 361) : " He has the ring of 
Gyges, that gives invisibility ; he has power to 
do all evil with impunity and without reproach, 
yet is he righteous still. He may have the 
very opposite of this impunity, but unjustly 
receive the reputation of unrighteousness, and 
with no means of reversing the unjust decision, 
yet is he righteous still. He may be made to 
endure the severest pains with no prospect of 
deliverance, either now or at any other time, 
yet is he righteous still. Finally, what may 
such a man, in such circumstances, expect from 
his fellow-man ? ' The righteous man, in this 
state, will be scourged, he will suffer dislocat- 
ing tortures, he shall be bound with cords, and 
finally, after suffering all evils, shall be impaled, 
or crucified! " Compare only these wonderful 
utterances of what this master-mind conceived 
to be required by true reason with the teach- 
ings of the Bible as to the character and attri- 
butes of God, the nature of man, and the true 
end of life, together with its account of the 
actual life of Christ as the ideal man, and how 
well satisfied may we be that Christianity, 



152 Positive Evidences. [p ar t II. 

both as to its doctrines and as to the facts of 
the life upon which it founds its hopes, is en- 
tirely consistent with the demands of the high- 
est reason. 

2. The like truth is shown also by what 
Aristotle, the great opponent of Plato's system 
in general, deduced as the necessary conclu- 
sions of reason (Ueberweg, sees. 48-50) : " In 
the sphere of existence we find included that 
which is perpetually moved, and that which 
both moves and is moved ; there exists there- 
fore a third existence, which is always impart- 
ing motion, but is itself unmoved. This is 
God, the immaterial and eternal Form, the pure 
Actuality, in which is no potentiality, the self- 
thinking Season, or absolute Spirit, who, as abso- 
lutely perfect, is loved by all, and into the image 
of whose perfection all things seek to come. He 
occupies the very highest place in the scale of 
being, is without parts, is the Good; not a 
final product of development, but the eternal 
prius of all development. The highest good 
for man is happiness. This depends on the 
rational or virtuous activity of the soul through- 
out the whole of its life. The highest among 
the virtues is justice, or righteousness. Man's 
only worthy activity is honorable and virtuous 
activity, and the highest happiness is connect- 
ed with the highest virtue." Such are the de- 



Ch t 3.] Weight of the Evidence. 153 

ductions of these two ancient masters, in per- 
fect conformity (except their opposite ideas of 
the chief good of man, which, however, is of 
small moment, since both make virtue and 
happiness inseparable) with each other and 
with the truths of revelation. Let us now 
turn to the moderns. 

3. We first take Descartes, the father of 
modern philosophy (Ueberweg, sec. 114) : " He 
seeks to demonstrate the existence of God and 
the existence of the soul as an independent 
entity, separable from the body. . . There 
must be a first cause, which is God, and among 
the necessary attributes of God belongs the 
love of truth. God cannot wish to deceive," 
hence clear and distinct knowledge is attain- 
able by man. "God is the absolutely perfect 
being. In the conception of God there is con- 
tained necessary, perfect, and eternal exist- 
ence. Only one substance can be conceived 
as plainly needing nothing else in order to its 
existence, namely, God, for we plainly perceive 
that all others cannot exist without God's as- 
sistance. He attributes to matter nothing but 
extension and modes of extension, but no in- 
ternal states, or forces. Pressure and impul- 
sion (coming from God), the sum of which, in 
the universe, is invariable, must suffice for the 
explanation of all phenomena. The most per- 



154 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

feet of all emotions is intellectual love to God. 
Virtue depends on the control of the passions 
by wisdom." 

4. Of Locke, the great antagonist of, and 
founder of the school of philosophy opposed 
to, Descartes, it is scarcely necessary to speak 
to English readers as a devout believer and 
defender of Christianity. He held, it is true, 
that the immortality of the soul could not be 
demonstrated, by human reason, but was a sub- 
ject for revelation only; but he found no con- 
tradiction to reason in the doctrine ; while the 
existence of God, his essential, original, omni- 
present, and eternal being, the cause of all 
other things, and the foundation of all moral- 
ity, he thought were clearly proved by reason 
(vide "Human Understanding"). So also in 
his work, " Reasonableness of Christianity," 
he specifically maintains the reasonable nature 
of the essential doctrine of the Christian belief 
— viz., salvation by faith in our Lord Jesus 
Christ — and he continued through life a sin- 
cere and consistent professor of that faith. 

5. Leibnitz, who, Ueberweg says (sec. 117), 
was "the founder of the German philosophy 
of the eighteenth century," finds that God ex- 
ists, and is "the most perfect Being, than 
whom no greater can be conceived. The good 
man is he who loves all men, so far as reason 



Ch. 3.] Weight of the Evidence. 155 

permits, and justice is the virtue which con- 
trols this love. Submission to the eternal laws 
of the Divine Monarchy is justice in the uni- 
versal sense, in which it includes all virtues in 
itself. The particular phenomena of nature 
can and must be mechanically explained ; but 
the principles of physics and mechanics them- 
selves depend on the direction of a Supreme 
Intelligence, and can only be explained when 
we take into consideration this Intelligence; 
therefore, the true principles of physics must 
be deduced from the divine perfections. The 
soul governs the body, and from its unity and 
spirituality he infers its indestructibility and 
immortality. God is the primitive Unity, or 
the original, simple, and absolute Substance. 
He has an adequate knowledge of all things, 
since he is the Source of all ; is an omnipresent 
Center, and all things are immediately present 
to him. God governs nature as its Architect, 
the world of spirits as their Monarch ; and be- 
tween the kingdoms of nature and grace there 
is a predetermined harmony. As to moral 
evil, or wrong, God could not remove them 
without removing the power of self-determina- 
tion, and therewith the possibility of morality 
itself; therefore, freedom, not as exemption 
from law, but as the power of deciding for 
one's self according to known law, belongs to 



156 Positive Evidences. [p ar t II. 

the essence of the human spirit. The course 
of nature is so ordered by God as in all cases 
to accord with the highest interests of the soul; 
and in this consists the harmony between the 
kingdoms of nature and grace." 

6. Finally, we cite Kant, the illustrious met- 
aphysician of Germany, perhaps both the most 
comprehensive and profound of all modern phi- 
losophers. "Pure reason," he teaches, "de- 
mands the doctrines of the freedom of the will, 
the immortality of the human soul, and the 
existence of God. The moral law requires 
holiness — i. e., perfect conformity of the will to 
the moral law. But the consciousness of a con- 
tinual bent toward transgression, or at least 
toward impurity of motive — i. e., toward the 
intermixture of imperfect, non-moral motives 
of obedience — accompanies the spirit in its best 
estate. Virtue is the highest good, happiness 
the indispensable condition of the realization 
of perfect good." In his work entitled "Re- 
ligion Within the Limits of Mere Reason," he 
teaches, in its four parts, of — "1. The indwell- 
ing of an evil principle, side by side with the 
good one, in human nature, or of the radical 
evil in human nature; 2. Of the contest be- 
tween the good and evil principles for the con- 
trol of man ; 3. Of the victory of the good 
principle over the evil one, and of the founda- 



Ch. 3.] Weight of the Evidence. 157 

tion of a kingxlom of God on the earth ; 4. Of 
true and false religious service under the rule 
of the good principle, or of religion and priest- 
craft. There is in human nature a propensity 
to reverse the moral order. The good princi- 
ple is humanity in its complete moral perfec- 
tion (of which happiness is, by the will of the 
Supreme Being, the immediate consequence). 
Man, thus conceived — and only thus is he well- 
pleasing to God — may be represented as the 
Son of God. In practical faith on this Son of 
God, man may hope to become well-pleasing 
to God, and so to attain to blessedness ; or, in 
other words, that man is not an unworthy ob- 
ject of the divine complacency who is conscious 
of such a moral disposition that he can believe, 
with a well-grounded confidence in himself, 
that, if subjected to temptations and sufferings 
like those which (in the gospel of Christ) are 
made the touch-stone of the ideal of humanity, 
he would remain unalterably loyal to that ideal, 
faithfully following it as his model, and retain- 
ing its likeness." 

Such are the conclusions of the protracted 
and profound meditations of these intellectual 
giants. They cannot, of course, be made to 
give evidence as to those doctrines of Chris- 
tianity — as, e. #., the incarnation, the suffi- 
ciency of the atonement, the resurrection, etc. 



158 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

— which from their very nature are necessa- 
rily the subject of revelation only. But upon 
nearly, if not all, those that are capable of the 
deductions of unaided reason — those of the 
depravity of human nature, the existence and 
nature of God, the obligation of his Jaw, the 
nature and the necessity of holiness, the im- 
mortality of the soul, the reasonableness of 
requiring faith for salvation, etc. — in such as 
these, their conclusions, arrived at in some 
points by one, in others by another, show the 
agreement of Christianity with reason. No 
jne, indeed, of those great intellects was ever 
ible singly to ascertain all these great truths 
without the aid of revelation ; with much that is 
good the most eminent of them, unlike Christ, 
have mingled much that was unworthy; and, 
at the best, their conclusions fall far short of 
the sublimity, the purity, the consistency, and 
the certainty, of Bible doctrine. Yet, when 
we find the greatest minds of all ages, though 
totally differing in their methods and as to 
many of their principles, nevertheless sustain- 
ing, some one, some another, of the doctrines 
of the Bible, we must conclude that Christian- 
ity is at least not unreasonable ; and farther, 
even as to those doctrines which cannot with- 
out revelation be made the subject of reason- 
ing, yet, when revealed, there has never been 



Ch. 3.] Weight of the Evidence. 159 

proved any disagreement between them and 
reason. Finally, when we consider how many 
of the most distinguished leaders of human 
thought, in various fields of knowledge, have 
given in their adhesion not only to those doc- 
trines in some measure cleducible by reason, 
but also to those which must be given by rev- 
elation alone, our conclusion is still farther 
strengthened. Poets like Shakespeare, Mil- 
ton, and Tennyson; statesmen like Pitt, and 
Gladstone, and Webster, and Calhoun ; mental 
philosophers like Sir William Hamilton, Cole- 
ridge, and Dugald Stewart; physicists like 
Newton and Davy, like Faraday, Agassiz, and 
Maury — have fully believed in the truth of 
Christianity. It is almost impossible that any 
set of principles thus concurred in by so many 
of the greatest intellects, looking from such 
various stand-points of pursuit and of histor- 
ical period, etc., can be unreasonable and ab- 
surd. The objection that is sometimes urged, 
on the ground of the mysterious nature of 
some of the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, 
is easily answered. If we are to receive that 
religion only that is without mystery, and to 
which our reason is adequate, then we must 
reject all religion whatsoever. For every re- 
ligion must suppose a God ; yet the nature and 
the mode of existence of God is wholly myste- 



160 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

rious to us, and lies beyond our reason. Nay, 
if we receive nothing but what is fully explain- 
able to us, we must reject all sciences and arts, 
and, what is more, the notion we have of our 
own existence ; for all of these involve princi- 
ples not capable of being understood by us.* 

*The absurdity of this objection is well shown by the 
following illustration, taken from Coleridge : "A sick man, 
whose complaint was as obscure as his sufferings were severe 
and notorious, was thus addressed by a humane stranger : 
' My poor friend, I find you dangerously ill, and on this 
account only, and because you have not wherewith to pay 
a physician, I have come to you. Respecting your disease, 
indeed, I can tell you nothing that you are capable of 
understanding, more than you already know, or can be 
taught by reflection on your own experience. But I have 
rendered the disease no longer irremediable. I have 
brought the remedy with me, and I now offer the means 
of immediate relief to you, with the assurance of convales- 
cence and a final perfect cure — nothing more being re- 
quired on your part but your best endeavors to follow the 
prescriptions I shall leave with you. Ask not how such a 
disease is possible ; enough for the present that you know 
it to be real. I come to cure the disease, not to explain 
it.'" ("Aids to Reflection," p. 221.) What would be 
thought of the patient's objecting to the efficiency of the 
remedy because he did not understand its manner of opera- 
tion? "But if thou canst not read the mystery of birds," 
says Cyril, " when soaring on high, how wouldest thou read 
the Maker of things? Who among men knows even the 
names of all wild beasts ? or who can accurately classify 
their natures? But if we know not even their bare names, 
how should we comprehend their Maker?" 






Ch. 3.] Weight of the Evidence. 161 

Christianity, then, loses nothing in its claim 
to be reasonable because in some things it is 
mysterious to us. There is nothing in it con- 
trary to reason, and that it has much that is 
above reason is surely no just ground of objec- 
tion to its divine character ; nay, we expect to 
find in that which is divine something beyond 
the grasp of human powers, and we would 
justly at once disbelieve in its divinity did we 
not find in it something that was incomprehen- 
sible to us. 



162 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE SUPERHUMAN TEACHING OF CHRIST — II. 
THE ANALOGY OF NATURE — III. ITS SUPERI- 
ORITY BOTH TO HUMAN REASON AND NATURE. 

II. We are next to show that the principles 
of Christianity are in harmony with the well- 
known constitution and course of nature about 
us. This agreement, it is claimed, is so gen- 
eral and remarkable, in the nature as well of 
the difficulties as of the things not difficult, con- 
tained in each, as to constitute an analogy, or 
likeness, and thus to show unmistakably that 
both are from the hand of the same author, 
even God. The argument following, in proof 
of this position, is taken from Butler's cele- 
brated work, the "Analogy of Religion" — an 
argument which, so far as the author is aware, 
no skeptic has ever even ventured to attack, 
and which certainly no one has ever attacked 
with success. In following it, we find it indi- 
cated by nature. 

1. That mankind is appointed to live in 
a future state. For (1) it is a general law 
of nature that all creatures should exist in 
various stages of life, under greatly changed 



Ch. 4.] Weight of the Evidence. 163 

conditions and states of life. Thus the life 
of a man, from the state of life in the womb 
before birth to that of his fully - developed 
powers of manhood, passes through various 
exceedingly different states and conditions, 
equally with that of the butterfly from the 
worm to the gay and fully -developed insect. 
Therefore, that we are to exist hereafter in a 
state as different from this our present state 
of existence as this is from our former condi- 
tion, is not against, but according to, the anal- 
ogy of nature. (2) The possession of our 
living powers of action and feeling now is a 
presumption that they will still exist hereafter. 
Continuance is the law of all being — i. e., of all 
those qualities necessary to existence (cf. the 
scientific principle of continuity set forth in 
" The Unseen Universe "). Therefore, unless 
some reason can be shown why death should 
destroy them, we must presume that our pow- 
ers of action and feeling will continue, in some 
state, to exist. But there is no ground to be- 
lieve that death will destroy them. The mere 
cessation of their exercise does not prove their 
destruction, for their exercise is suspended 
also in sleep, and in a swoon, yet not destroyed. 
The body, as a whole, appears to be in this 
respect just like each of its parts — the eye, or 
the hand — merely the instrument of the inward 



164 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

powers of the mind, and just as any one part 
— the e}^e, or the hand — may perish, and yet 
leave those mental powers themselves entirely 
unimpaired, so may the whole body perish, 
and leave them unimpaired. On the contra- 
ry, since it is manifest that our gross body is 
not necessary to our intellectual enjoyments ; 
since, indeed, it often leaves them wholly un- 
impaired, though it is reduced to the extrem- 
ity of weakness, and to the verge of death; 
there is no ground therefore, in nature, for 
believing that the exercise of our faculties is 
at all suspended, even by death itself. Death, 
on the contrary, may in some sort answer to 
our birth, and, like it, put us into a higher 
and more enlarged state of life. As death 
therefore does not appear likely to destroy us, 
it is probable we shall live on, and the next 
life may be as natural as the present. 

2. Nature teaches us that in that future state 
men shall be rewarded good or evil, as they 
have been virtuous- or vicious here. (1) We 
find, in general, that in nature pain follows 
vice, and happiness results from virtue; and 
moreover, as with intemperance, that such pain 
often follows actions which are accompanied 
w T ith much present pleasure. (2) That it is 
often much greater than the pleasure. (3) Its 
delay is no presumption of final impunity. (4) 



Ch. 4.] Weight of the Evidence. 165 

After such delay they often come suddenly. 

(5) And that too even though men may not 
have a distinct and full expectation of them. 

(6) Opportunities once neglected may never 
be recalled. (7) The consequences of folly 
and extravagance are often irretrievable. (8) 
Neglect is often attended with consequences 
as dreadful as positive misbehavior. (9) Many 
such consequences — as, e. g., mortal diseases — 
are permanent and irretrievable to him who 
incurs them. 

The character of the punishment, then, is 
analogous to that pronounced against trans- 
gressors by the Scriptures. Moreover, these 
things are not accidental, but they are things 
of every day's experience, and they proceed 
from general laws, and very general ones, by 
which God governs the world, in the natural 
course of his providence. This proves him to 
be an intelligent Governor, administering re- 
wards and punishments. Moreover, he is a 
moral Governor ; for though it is admitted that 
the divine government we are under in this 
present state, taken alone, and not with what 
we claim for the future administration of re- 
wards and punishments, is not perfect in degree, 
it is jet moral in kind. For, not only is it to 
be presumed, since it is shown he does govern 
in some way, that he would govern agreeably 



166 Positive Ecidcnces. [p ar t n. 

to morality, but a moral government is implied 
also: (1) from the fact that human society, 
which is but an instrumentality of God, does 
actually punish the vicious ; (2) from the fact 
that, in the natural course of things, virtue is 
rewarded and vice is punished. Therefore, the 
good and the bad effects, the satisfaction and 
the uneasiness produced, respectively, by vir- 
tue and by vice ; the disposition of men to 
befriend virtue and to discountenance vice; 
lastly, the tendency that there is in virtue and 
vice to produce their good and bad effects in 
a greater degree than they do in fact produce 
them, owing to the imperfection of human so- 
ciety and human laws — all these are proofs of 
there being something moral in nature. For 
happy would be the lot of individuals and 
whole nations if perfect morality universally 
existed. 

3. The foregoing considerations, therefore, 
are a strong proof, (1) that the Author of 
nature is in favor of virtue, and against vice ; 
(2) that the distributive justice of the next 
world will be the Very same in kind, however 
different in degree, from that which we now ex- 
perience ; (3) that virtue and vice, which are 
here actually rewarded and punished imper- 
fectly, will be actually rewarded and punished 
fully hereafter. Finally, from all these con- 



Ch. 4.] Weight of the Evidence. 167 

siderations there arises a presumption that 
the moral government established in nature 
will be carried on much farther hereafter, and 
indeed absolutely completed. 

4. Our present life is a probation, under 
trial, difficulties, and danger, intended to pre- 
pare us, by moral discipline, for another world. 
The way to temporal good is a way of labor 
and trial, and beset with difficulty and danger, 
so that we are accustomed to feel anxious so- 
licitude for the young just setting out in life. 
Persons may be betrayed into wrong behavior 
by surprise, or overcome by other very singu- 
lar and extraordinary occasions. And again, 
persons who have contracted habits of vice and 
■folly of any kind, are liable even to go out of 
the way to seek opportunities to gratify those 
habits. Some have so little consideration that 
they will scarce look beyond the present, but 
gratify themselves regardless of future conse- 
quences ; some are blinded and deceived by 
inordinate passions, and some are not blinded, 
but forcibly carried away, as it were, by such 
passions ; while some shamelessly avow that 
their pleasure is the law of their life, to what- 
ever vicious excess it may carry them. Now, 
to secure worldly success, it is necessary to 
practice self-denial, and make the considera- 
tions of future interest govern the life, rather 



168 Positive Evidences. [Partli. 

than the enjoyments of the present. Thus we 
see that our difficulties and trials are of simi- 
lar character, and have the same effect upon 
our behavior and future happiness, in things 
of merely worldly concern, as we are taught 
they have in religion. And, it may be added, 
in the former as well as in the latter, our dan- 
gers and difficulties are greatly increased by 
the ill-behavior of others, by improper educa- 
tion, by bad example, by wrong opinions being 
prevalent, and by the deceit and hypocrisy of 
those with whom we may be connected in busi- 
ness, etc. Nevertheless, in both it is possible 
for us to be prudent and careful : there is no 
more required of us than we are able to do; 
and, in any case, we can no more complain of 
this, with regard to the Author of nature, than 
of his not having given us other advantages 
belonging to other orders of creatures. All 
this, then, makes it credible that we are in a 
state of trial in our moral as well as in our 
natural capacity, notwithstanding these diffi- 
culties. 

Farther, we are placed in this state of trial 
for our moral discipline — our improvement in 
virtue and piety — in preparation for another 
world. All the reasons for such a state exist- 
ing here we may not be able to understand, 
but this is the end for which we are placed in 



Ch. 4.] Weight of the Ecidence. 1G9 

such a state ; so that just as the beginning of 
life is the time for education for mature age 
in this world, so is this life an education for 
the next world. 1. Our characters and quali- 
fications must be suited to the particular kind 
of employments and happiness peculiar to the 
future world of bliss, for otherwise we should 
be incapable of engaging in those employ- 
ments, and of enjoying that happiness. 2. We 
are so constituted that we are capable of be- 
coming qualified for states of life for which 
we were once wholly unqualified. We can ac- 
quire habits of body and habits of mind. By 
accustoming ourselves to any course of action 
we get an aptness to go on, a facility, a readi- 
ness, and often pleasure, in it. The inclina- 
tions which rendered us averse to it grow 
weaker, the difficulties in it — not only the 
imaginary but the real ones — lessen, and the 
contrary principles grow stronger by exercise. 
And thus a new character, in several respects, 
may be formed. 3. These capacities are neces- 
sary to our preparation for mature life, and in- 
tended to be used in order to that preparation. 
Nature in no respect qualifies us at the begin- 
ning of life for this mature state of life, but 
leaves man an unformed, unfinished creature, 
utterly deficient, and unqualified, both in body 
and mind, for- that mature state of life which 



170 Positive Evidences. [p ar t II. 

was the end in view in his creation, considering 
him as related only to this world. All these 
defects are to be supplied by education through 
the capacities given him ; and as nature has 
given us such capacities, so also she places us 
in such a situation throughout infancy, child- 
hood, and youth, as is fitted for our acquiring 
those qualifications of all sorts of which we 
stand in need in mature age. In like manner 
the Scriptures represent this life as intended 
to educate us morally for the next. And this, 
though we could not see in what way it was so, 
for neither do children understand how food, 
exercise, etc., prepare them for mature age. 
But, 4. The present life is well fitted for this 
education. For, 1st. Virtue and piety are 
necessary qualifications for the future state, 
since, according to analogy, that state will be 
an active one, under a more immediate moral 
government by God, and thus give occasion 
for the need of such a character in its mem- 
bers. 2d. We need such improvement in our 
moral character by discipline. That we are 
capable of it, has been already shown; that 
we need it, is evident from our being, first, 
finite creatures, and therefore imperfect and 
deficient; secondly, corrupt creatures, and 
therefore needing renovation. Even unfallen 
creatures, as angels and Adam, are benefited 



Ch. 4.] Weight of the Evidence. 171 

by being raised to a higher and more secure 
state of virtue by proper discipline, while for 
fallen and depraved men it is absolutely nec- 
essary. Now, this world is peculiarly fit to be 
such a state of discipline to all who will set 
themselves to amendment and improvement. 
The existence about us of allurements to what 
is wrong, difficulties in the discharge of our 
duty, our not being able to act a uniform right 
part without some thought and care, the op- 
portunities we have for doing wrong — these 
snares and temptations to vice compel us to 
keep upon our guard, and to practice resolu- 
tion and self-denial in order to preserve our 
integrity. Thus a more continued and more 
intense exercise of virtue is required, and so 
the habit of virtue is better formed and fixed. 
And the same is true as to the formation of 
our habits of passive submission to G-ocl, nec- 
essary, together with that of active obedience, 
to make up an entirely virtuous character, such 
as is required for participation in the employ- 
ments and the happiness of the next world. 
Affliction is the proper discipline for resigna- 
tion. Just as we find, then, in this life, that 
what we are to be in mature age depends on 
what we do in childhood and youth, so we are 
to be in the next world just as we do here. 
6. Such a svstem is not inconsistent with 



172 Positive Evidences. [p ar t II. 

wisdom and goodness. (1) It is quite credible 
that God's moral government is a scheme be- 
yond our comprehension. The whole scheme 
of the material world and its government has 
such an astonishing connection of parts, such 
reciprocal correspondencies and mutual rela- 
tions, that we do not know how necessary the 
existence of any one part, however small, may 
be to the existence of the whole ; nor are we 
competent to judge of it as a whole. Much 
more incompetent are we to judge as to the 
moral world, from the small part which comes 
within our view, in the present life, of the true 
relations or importance of all its parts, or of 
its character as a whole. Therefore, we are 
not competent to say that it is inconsistent 
with wisdom or goodness. (2) Besides, we 
have no reason to infer, from the existence 
of evil, such a conclusion ; for in the natural 
world no ends are accomplished without means, 
and often desirable ends are brought about by 
means which would otherwise be very unde- 
sirable. Supposing the moral world to be anal- 
ogous to it in this respect, the afflictions we 
suffer may be the means by which a greater 
preponderance of good will, in the end, be se- 
cured. Farther, the natural government of 
the world is carried on by the operation of 
general laws, for which there may be the wis- 



Ch. 4.] Weight of the Evidence. 173 

est reasons, and by which the best ends may 
be accomplished. There is no ground for be- 
lieving that irregularities could be remedied 
or precluded by general laws, while special 
interpositions might produce evil, and prevent 
good, by encouraging idleness and negligence, 
and by making it doubtful what are the gen- 
eral and regular rules of life. So Christianity 
also is a scheme beyond our comprehension, 
itself but a part of a mysterious whole, viz., 
the moral government of the universe by Grod 
— a scheme in which means are used to an end 
— a scheme carried on by general laws. 

Thus these analogies show us that it is not 
at all incredible that, could we but comprehend 
the whole, we should find the permission of 
disorder in the world consistent with justice 
and goodness. Therefore, the fact of its exist- 
ence cannot invalidate the proof that we have 
of religion. We are only incompetent to judge 
in such cases when we are ignorant of the 
possibilities of things, and of their present 
relations ; and we dare not venture to declare 
that the existence of evil is inconsistent with 
infinite wisdom, and goodness, and power. 

7. We must expect that such a system will 
have some things in it incomprehensible to 
us. (1) There are innumerable things in the 
constitution and government of the universe 



174 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

which are beyond the natural reach of our 
faculties. Those that are open to our view 
are doubtless but a point in comparison with 
the whole plan of Providence as to things past 
as well as future in this world, not to speak 
of what is now going on also in the remote 
parts of the boundless universe. And even 
those things we do see are, in many respects, 
beyond our powers of comprehension. But 
this is no presumption against their truth 
and reality; and therefore there is no pre- 
sumption either against the truth of Chris- 
tianity because it teaches us some truths which 
are incomprehensible to us — as, e. g., the gov- 
ernment of the world by Jesus Christ, the 
influence of the Holy Spirit upon the hearts 
of men, etc. 

(2) Since the acknowledged constitution and 
course of nature is not what we should expect 
beforehand, but apparently in many respects 
objectionable, and since we thus know that we 
are wholly incompetent to judge of such mat- 
ters beforehand, we must conclude that we are 
also incompetent, only in a much higher de- 
gree, to judge beforehand what Christianity 
ought to be. How improbable, e. #., it would 
have seemed beforehand that men should be 
so much more capable of discovering the 
general laws of matter, and the magnitudes, 



Ch. 4.] Weight of the Evidence. 175 

paths, and revolutions of the heavenly bodies, 
than the causes and cures of diseases, and 
many other things in which human life seems 
so much more nearly concerned than astrono- 
my ; or how improbable that brutes, without 
reason, should act through instinct, in many 
respects with vastly greater sagacity and fore- 
sight than men. Yet such are the facts, and 
the short-sightedness of our reason, even in the 
commoner matters of this life, is thus fully seen. 
(3) Farther still, there is a great resemblance 
between the light of nature and the light of 
Christianity in this respect. In both, (1) the 
common rules of conduct are plain and obvi- 
ous; (2) many parts of knowledge require 
careful consideration to gain it ; (3) the hin- 
derances — viz., indolence, self-satisfaction, our 
love of other things, and the weakness of our 
minds, etc. — are the same in both; (4) they 
are to be increased in the same way, by the 
continuance of liberty and the progress of 
learning ; and (5) we should expect that Chris- 
tianity, being a remedial system, would have 
been long delayed, and at last but partially 
and imperfectly communicated to mankind as 
a whole. For many of the remedies that we 
possess for physical diseases were unknown for 
ages, are now known to but few, and probably 
many are yet entirely unknown. 



176 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

We conclude, then, that reason is incompe- 
tent to decide against revelation because of 
iny thing in its moral teachings, as also to 
reject its evidences because of the difficulty 
of comprehending some of its teachings. Nei- 
ther can Christianity be rejected because it is 
a complicated scheme, involving a long series 
of intricate means to accomplish the recovery 
of the world from sin, for such is the natural 
course of providence in this world. Through- 
out nature its Author appears deliberate in his 
operations, accomplishing his ends by slow, suc- 
cessive steps — as, for instance, in the changes 
of the seasons, the ripening of the fruits of the 
earth, etc. 

8. We should .expect the appointment of a 
Mediator between God and man, in the work 
of human redemption, by whom the redemp- 
tion of the world would be accomplished. (1) 
We, and all reasonable creatures, are indebted 
for life and all life's blessings, first, for our 
being brought into the world, and then for 
our preservation and happiness therein to the 
mediation and instrumentality of others. (2) 
It is supposable that future punishment may 
follow wickedness as a natural consequence, 
according to general laws established in the 
universe, just as evil consequences follow our 
transgressions in this world. (3) But we find 



Ch. 4.] Weight of the Evidence. 177 

that, in the constitution of nature, all the usual 
bad consequences of evil actions do not always 
follow, but that sometimes, in various degrees, 
they may be prevented, so that we have here 
some evidence of compassion in the original 
constitution of the world. (4) There seems 
no reason to suppose that any thing tve could 
do would, of itself, prevent them, for we do not 
know all the reasons why future punishment 
should be inflicted, nor the whole consequences 
of vice, nor the manner in which they would 
follow if unpre vented. The analogy of nature 
gives us positive evidence that when men, by 
their folly, bring on themselves temporal in- 
jury, disease, and ruin, neither sorrow for the 
past, nor amendment for the future, will pre- 
vent these consequences. Therefore, if we 
misbehave in our higher capacity, we should 
not expect that sorrow and amendment would 
alone be sufficient to prevent our punishment. 
(5) That we are in a state of degradation and 
danger, through the fault of our first parents, 
is analogous to the whole history of man here, 
as when we see children, for instance, daily 
brought into a worse state in the world through 
the misbehavior of their parents. Being there- 
fore in such a fallen state, and being guilty 
ourselves of many actual sins besides, and hav- 
ing no way of escape, the Scriptures assure us 
8* 



178 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

that Grod gave his Son to the world, that who- 
soever would believe on him should not perish, 
and that his interposition to that end was effect- 
ual. (6) In this revelation we should expect 
to find much, the reason of which we cannot 
know. For instance, it tells us the way in 
which Christ so interposed for us — 1st. As a 
Prophet, to publish anew the law of God ; 2d. 
As a King, to found the Church, and to govern 
it by his Spirit ; 3d. As a Priest, to offer him- 
self a propitiatory sacrifice, and make atone- 
ment for the sins of the world. Now, without 
a revelation we should have no means of know- 
ing whether or not a Mediator was necessary ; 
or, supposing one to be necessary, in what man- 
ner he would effect the object for which he had 
come. It is therefore highly absurd to object 
to the expediency, or usefulness, for instance, 
of the sacrificial death of Christ for our re- 
demption, because we may not see how it was 
conducive to the ends proposed. (7) Such a 
revelation of the Innocent One suffering for 
the guilty is consistent with the analogy of 
nature; for in this life innocent people ordi- 
narily suffer for the faults of the guilty ; and 
it is often the case, when men, by their follies 
and crimes, have been brought into extreme 
distress, from which they can be extricated 
only by the very great pains and labors of 



Ch. 4.] Weight of the Evidence. 179 

others, that the guilty are saved through the 
sufferings of the innocent. Besides, the tend- 
ency of this method of our redemption is to 
vindicate the authority of God's laws, and to 
deter his creatures from sin in the most effect- 
ual manner; and this consideration alone is 
sufficient to justify its reasonableness. Yet 
this is probably far from being the whole rea- 
son. There may be many reasons of which 
we know nothing ; nor is our ignorance of the 
reasons a good ground for denying its reason- 
ableness. On the contrary, the analogy of 
nature teaches us not to expect so much to 
know the reasons of the divine conduct as to 
be informed of our duty ; for we know but lit- 
tle about the fundamental principles of the 
operations of nature, yet we are sufficiently 
informed as to the practical effect of those op- 
erations upon our lives. So with revelation. 
The doctrine of a Mediator relates only to what 
was done on God's part in the appointment of 
a Mediator, and on the Mediator's part in the 
execution of the work thus assigned him. Our 
duty in regard to that mediation is entirely a 
different matter. On this we are fully informed; 
we need not be so informed upon the other. 

9. We ought not to expect that Christian- 
ity should be clearly proved, or universally 
believed. For — 1st. It is often exceedingly 



180 Positive Evidences. [p ar t II. 

difficult to determine wherein our temporal in- 
terests consist, or to estimate the changes and 
accidents which may disappoint our plans, or 
to answer objections to a course of action, 
which, nevertheless, for good reasons, we feel 
warranted in pursuing. 2d. The blessings of 
this life — of climate, soil, health, strength, un- 
derstanding, and knowledge — are distributed 
among men in the most unequal and promis- 
cuous manner. 3d. Nor are these facts incon- 
sistent with justice, since no more is required 
of any man than what might equitably be ex- 
pected of him. Nor is it inconsistent with 
wisdom and goodness ; for (1) the examina- 
tion of the evidence of religion, to those to 
whom it does not appear convincing at first, 
may be part of their trial, in giving scope for a 
virtuous exercise or a vicious neglect of their 
understanding, in examining or not examining 
it, just as they are in a state of probation as to 
their behavior in other and more common af- 
fairs. The same disposition which makes a 
man obedient to the precepts of religion would 
lead him, w r ere he not convinced of its truth, 
to consider its evidence. Negligence and in- 
attention, before conviction, are as truly guilty 
as vicious practice afterw T ard. (2) Even doubt- 
ful evidence places us in a state of probation 
in so far as that we are bound to consider and 



Ct.4.] Weight of the Evidence. 181 

weigh that evidence. Doubt implies some evi- 
dence of that which is doubted, just as truly as 
belief implies a higher degree of it, and cer- 
tainty a higher degree still. Therefore, even 
doubt requires of us a reverent and careful con- 
sideration, that is open to farther light and 
conviction. (3) Difficulties of belief should no 
more be complained of than difficulties of j)rac- 
tice ; for, since they give occasion for the exer- 
cise of a virtuous disposition, they are of the 
same nature as external temptation, and are 
adapted for our discipline and improvement in 
virtue. 

In conclusion, let us consider : 1st. That 
these difficulties may be from our own fault — 
from our attending less to evidence than to 
difficulties, or from considering religion with 
levity or carelessness, with passion or with 
prejudice. These may hinder evidence from 
being laid before us, or prevent it from being 
candidly weighed after it has been presented. 
2d. That therefore, if some will continue to 
disregard and reject Christianity, without a 
candid consideration of its evidences, there is 
no reason to suppose that they would act oth- 
erwise, even though a demonstration of its 
truth were given them. 3d. That the guilt of 
an immoral life in those who thus obstinately 
reject the light of Christianity, without a fair 



182 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

examination of its evidences, is greatly aggra- 
vated. 

Such is the argument drawn from the agree- 
ment of Christianity with the acknowledged 
constitution and course of nature. Nothing 
appears contrary to nature, and there is much 
that is in complete and remarkable harmony 
therewith. This fact points to the Maker of 
nature as the Author of Christianity also ; and, 
while its singular analogy with the order of 
nature about us attests its reality and truth, 
the impress of the same great features and 
principles of administration upon both de- 
clares that both are the work of the same in- 
finite Power and Wisdom, and that the Author 
of Christianity also is God. 

III. But Christianity excels alike the best 
deductions of philosophy and the highest teach- 
ings of nature. While it is in agreement with 
them, it is also superior, and thus it displays 
its divinity. This has already been partially 
shown (vide Part I., Ch. 3), and we have seen 
how Christ alone has, 1st, set forth the whole 
vast range of moral truth ; 2d, has taught with 
unvarying wisdom and goodness. In these 
and other such striking characteristics is his 
superiority to all other teachers shown. In 
the nature of the special characteristics of his 
teaching this is more apparent still. Rogers 



Ch. 4.] Weight of the Evidence. 183 

("Supernatural Origin of the Bible") has 
pointed out, among other peculiarities distin- 
guishing the teaching contained in the Bible 
from that of all other religions and philoso- 
phies, deprived of its light, the following par- 
ticulars : 1. The propounding of a religion 
which aspires to universal dominion, and that 
achieved without violence, by moral suasion 
alone, notwithstanding that that religion is 
contrary to our fallen nature, and often vio- 
lated even by its own professed followers. 2. 
The full recognition of the right of conscience 
in general, and of the principle of universal tol- 
eration, found nowhere else, especially never 
with a Jew. 3. In broad contrast with all 
other systems, its giving no hint of any alli- 
ance between religion and political govern- 
ment. 4. Similarly, its reticence as to the 
future and invisible world, excepting on the 
one point as to which they are silent — viz., 
that therein "dwelleth righteousness." 5. Its 
teaching of the entire helplessness of man for 
good — exemplified in Christ's assertion, " With- 
out me ye can do nothing" — while yet it re- 
mains most sympathetic with man's sad con- 
dition. 6. Its principle, that to conscientious- 
ly reduce to practice what we already know 
("He that is disposed to do the will of God 
shall know of the doctrine"), is the surest way 



184 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

of advancing in the knowledge of divine truth. 
7. That no religious knowledge is of any worth 
except as reduced to practice — "faith without 
works is dead." 8. Its freedom from minute 
casuistry — as, e. g., in the case of "meats," 
" days," etc. 9. Its giving the crowning place 
to "charity." 10. Its avoidance of political 
and social rocks — as the questions of slavery 
and those pertaining to civil government. In 
all these it is in the strongest contrast not only 
with all philosophy, but with human nature 
generally, and even with the opinions and 
practices, in one point or another, of most of 
its followers in succeeding times ; for they, 
after having been taught, still vainly strove 
to reach, in their own instructions, the height 
of Christ's divine teaching. 

Row also sets forth Christ's superiority, sub- 
stantially as follows : 

1. Christ's declaration, " I am the light of 
the world ; he that followeth me shall not walk 
in darkness, but shall have the light of life," 
was a great and bold utterance in view of the 
coming tests of the ages of time, but complete- 
ly verified on every page of history since, and 
by the world to-day. But if so, he far tran- 
scends in this all philosophers, or other teach- 
ers, that have ever appeared among men, and 
therefore he must be superhuman and divine. 



Ch. 4.] Weight of the Evidence. 185 

2. No human genius, however exalted, has 
ever been able wholly to emancipate himself 
from the restraints imposed on him by his 
birth, and by the moral and spiritual atmos- 
phere in which he was educated. For in- 
stance, the teachings of Mohammed, in the 
Koran, bear the strongest impress of the 
Arab mind, as also that of all others who 
have assumed to be the great moral teachers 
of mankind. They have always been in some 
degree national, or local. Jesus Christ alone 
is catholic as humanity. Yet the Jews of his 
time were proverbially narrow-minded and ex- 
clusive bigots, fanatical and superstitious, and 
in such an atmosphere must Jesus and his 
disciples have been born and educated. It is 
evident that in that atmosphere the highest 
moral teaching could not have been evolved 
by any natural process ; consequently, if Jew T - 
ish peasants and fishermen have succeeded in 
elaborating a body of doctrine which not only 
agrees, so far as it goes, with that of the most 
enlightened teachers of the ancient world, but 
also succeeded in accomplishing what all of 
those masters, after all their efforts, failed ut- 
terly to effect, the conclusion, upon every rea- 
sonable principle, must be that Christ, the 
first Promulgator of this doctrine, was more 
than man. 



186 Positive Evidences, [Partn. 

3. The teaching of Christ is far superior to 
that of the philosophers, as well as to the 
teachings of mere nature: 1st. In its intense 
earnestness and reality, and in its appeal to 
every principle — the love of God, the love of 
Christ, the feeling of benevolence, self-love, 
the perception of moral beauty, the sense of 
truth, the love of justice, the appreciation of 
the honorable, the sense of self-respect, the 
love of approbation, and even the desire for 
praise — to all, in short, that acts mightily on 
human nature. This is in the most striking 
contrast with the philosophers, both ancient 
and modern. A large part of their attention 
is directed to mere abstract speculation — as, 
e. g., concerning the grounds and nature of 
moral obligation, in which, as they have de- 
termined in favor of one or the other theory, 
they have elaborated systems based on partial 
principles, and in disregard of some of the 
great realities of man's moral constitution, be- 
sides being otherwise partial and local. But 
the New Testament is catholic as human nat- 
ure. 2d. In its entire freedom from all at- 
tempts to deal with either political or social 
questions, and that too when Christ professed 
to be the Founder of a kingdom. The univer- 
sal practice of the great philosophers of the 
ancient world (cf. Ueberweg's " History of Phi- 



Ch. 4.] Weight of the Evidence. 187 

losophy") was precisely the reverse. With 
them, in fact, ethics was but a branch of poli- 
tics. The political and social legislation in 
the religion of Mohammed, also, is well known 
as the rock on which it is being hopelessly 
shipwrecked. Against Christianity, on the 
other hand, it has been charged as a defect in 
its principles, that it dwells so little on public 
duties and virtues ; but it is evident that in 
this it is singularly wise. If Christ had thus 
begun his work of regenerating mankind, Chris- 
tianity would not have survived the century 
which gave it birth. In its avoidance, then, 
of this danger we see the evidence of superior 
wisdom, and realize that its Author must have 
possessed an insight more than human. 3d. 
It has founded the religion of humanity. " Ye 
shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jeru- 
salem, worship the Father ; . . . but the hour 
cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers 
shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth ; 
for the Father seeketh such to worship him. 
God is a Spirit ; and they that worship him 
must worship him in spirit and in truth," said 
Jesus to the Samaritan woman (John iv. 20- 
24). In thus repudiating at once all that was 
national, local, and outward, Jesus founded his 
religion, his spirituality, and the spirituality 
of true worship. Even Renan says that in this 



188 Positice Evidences. [Partn. 

utterance he has "forever laid deep the foun- 
dation of the religion of universal humanity." 
4th. Its all-comprehensive law of duty, declar- 
ing man's duty to man : (1) As founded on, 
and originating in, his filial relation to God as 
the universal Father of all men, and giving 
rise thereby to the universal brotherhood of 
man. The latter principle was but dimly con- 
ceived, at best, by any of the ancients, and then 
only as a barren speculation; while also all 
modern anti-Christian systems find it impos- 
sible to announce any principle (cf., e. g., that 
men are the descendants of some primeval sav- 
age, or that we should practice self-sacrifice for 
others, because it is, on the whole, more expe- 
dient^ etc.) which can form any effectual basis 
upon which it may rest. (2) As measured by 
the regard which man feels for himself — "Do 
unto others as ye would have them do unto 
you," etc. (3) As measured and sanctioned 
by the obligation he is under to Jesus Christ. 
"Love one another as I have loved you," he 
bids us — carrying the law of duty and self-sac- 
rifice to its extremest limits, beyond which it is 
impossible for human thought to pass, and in- 
cluding every social duty which man can owe 
to man. 5th. That every mental gift, worldly 
possession, or other advantage, which man pos- 
sesses, as well as the position in society he oc- 



Ch. 4.] Weight of the Evidence. 189 

cupies, is a stewardship intrusted to him by 
God, for the right discharge of which he is re- 
sponsible. 6th. The relative importance he as- 
signs to the milder virtues — as meekness, pity, 
and especially humility (vide Sermon on the 
Mount), making them predominant, while the 
philosophers have ever put highest the polit- 
ical or heroic virtues of courage, patriotism, 
and ambition. But ever since Christ, it can- 
not be doubted that an overwhelming majority 
of the wisest and holiest of men have accepted 
this teaching as right ; and it is evident that 
if those principles had, during the last three 
thousand years, occupied the place of the he- 
roic virtues in men's estimation, the hapjoiness 
of mankind would have increased a thousand- 
fold. 7th. Christ viewed his mission as to the 
masses of mankind ; the philosophers and the 
followers of natural religion, to a small intel- 
lectual aristocracy, and "to those of mankind 
who have a natural tendency to virtue," as 
Plato said — while Christ came not to " call the 
righteous, but sinners, to repentance." 8th. 
The creation by Christianity of a mighty moral 
and spiritual power adequate to effect the re- 
generation of mankind. Of the want of this 
the ancient philosophers confessed their need, 
but never even claimed they had wherewith 
to heal the acknowledged moral corruption of 



190 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

man (vide Aristotle, "Ethics," book x., ch. 10). 
They never even thought of preaching repent- 
ance and amendment to the masses of men, 
and only a small body of ingenuous youths, 
born with a natural tendency toward what is 
good and noble, were supposed capable of re- 
ceiving their instructions. They could only 
appeal to the love of the beautiful and the 
good, or to the powerful principle of habit, 
and such like springs of action. But what 
were these to those who, without any new prin- 
ciple of moral life, or powerful conviction, were 
already vicious, and already under the domin- 
ion of bad habits ? All that could be done for 
such persons was to bring upon them the ex- 
ternal power of coercion. Hence the political 
character of all the ancient, and several of the 
modern, systems of ethics.* (Also cf. the doc- 

* Consider also the full significance of the following tes- 
timonies : " The farther the ages advance in cultivation, 
the more can the Bible be used, partly as the foundation, 
partly as the means, of education — not, of course, by super- 
ficial, but by really wise, men." — Goethe. "I have exam- 
ined all, as well as my narrow sphere, my straitened means, 
and my busy life, would allow me, and the result is, the 
Bible is the best book in the world." — J. Adams. " Peruse 
the books of philosophers, with all their pomp and diction — 
how meager, how contemptible, are they when compared 
with the Scriptures ! The majesty of the Scriptures strikes 
me with admiration." — Rousseau. " I have always been 
strongly in favor of secular, education — in the sense of edu- 



Ch. 4.] Weight of the Evidence. 191 

trine of "the survival of the fittest" — the min- 
istration of death to the degraded masses of 
mankind.) 

But Christ created a moral and spiritual 
power capable of stirring the hearts of men to 
their lowest depths — i. e.. faith, which, if we 
grant to the skeptic, for the sake of argument, 
that such changes are not the product of su- 
pernatural power working directly upon the 
soul, has actually succeeded in recovering to 
holiness a multitude of fallen men, such as no 
man can number. He has likewise created the 
greatest of Societies — namely, the Christian 
Church — in which the subjects of his spiritual 
kingdom may be trained to holiness ; for faith 
produces a conviction in the innermost spirit of 

cation without theology — but I must confess I have been no 
less seriously perplexed to know by what practical measures 
the religious feeling, which is the essential basis of conduct, 
was to be kept up, in the present utterly chaotic state of 
opinion on these matters, without the use of the Bible. The 
pagan moralists lack life and color, and even the noble 
Stoic, Marcus Antoninus, is too high and refined for an or- 
dinary child. Take the Bible as a whole, make the severest 
deductions which fair criticism can dictate, and there still 
remains in this old literature a vast residuum of moral 
beauty and grandeur. By the study of what other book 
could children be so much humanized? If Bible-reading 
is not accompanied by constraint and solemnity, I do not 
believe there is any thing in which children take more 
pleasure." — Huxley. 



192 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

man, respecting the eternal realities of things, 
and thus concentrates on the conscience the 
whole force of the religious principle in man. 
It then presents to him the person of Jesus in 
the divine attractiveness of his life and death 
— the perfect embodiment of all that is pure, 
holy, and lovely, in God or man, as the center 
of a new spiritual life; and thus has it re- 
stored to holiness multitudes of degraded men, 
and has elevated every holy man who has 
come under its influence to yet higher degrees 
of holiness. But neither philosophy nor the 
system of natural religion has had any very 
profound convictions ; it professed even to deal 
only in probabilities. The philosopher, there- 
fore, could not grapple with the conscience. 
All he could do was to appeal to cold reason ; 
he could awaken no emotion, nor summon any 
force capable of overcoming the violence of the 
passions. The best he could do was to form 
an ideal republic, or a shadowy, abstract sys- 
tem of morals — while Christ has created the 
Christian Church. 

Thus does Christianity show its superiority 
to all that has originated from merely human 
deduction, or is taught by the light of nature 
alone. In its original and unimprovable ex- 
cellence ; in its undisguised openness to all the 
world ; in its adaj)tation to every state, dispo- 



Ch. 4.] Weight of the Evidence. 193 

sition, and capacity, of man ; in its spirituality 
of worship, its humbling of men, and its exal- 
tation of the Deity ; in its restoration of order 
to the world ; its tendency to eradicate all evil 
passions from the heart ; its contrariety to the 
covetousness and ambition of mankind ; its 
restoration of the divine image to man, in- 
stead, as other religions, of weakly and vi- 
ciously affixing the moral image of man on 
God, and in its mighty effects — in all alike, 
Christianity is far superior to aught else that 
has ever appeared in the world, and in its 
greatness and glory proclaims itself as no less 
than divine. 

We next proceed to consider the prophecies 
of Christ. 
9 



194 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY. 

Prophecies, as we have seen, are "miracles 
of knowledge," and, consisting in " the decla- 
ration of things future beyond the power of 
human sagacity to discern or calculate, they 
are the highest evidence that can be given of 
a revelation from God." Christianity, bearing 
not one only but all the marks of divinity that 
we can require, and challenging from every 
side the closest inspection of her claims, invites 
us to behold also this "highest evidence" of 
prophecy, and to see that in all her aspects 
there is displayed the glory of her divine 
origin. In bringing this class of evidences 
forward, we are entitled to cite the prophecies 
contained in the Old Testament, as well as 
those in the New, in support of our position ; 
for it is evident to every candid mind that, 
whether divine or not, all contained in both 
divisions of the Bible forms but one great sys- 
tem in successive phases of development, from 
the patriarchs to Christ. Whatsoever, therefore, 
goes to prove the divinity of any stage of that 
development, is evidence of the divinity of the 



Ch. 5.] Weight of the Evidence. 195 

organic whole, and of every other stage. If 
Judaism was divine, then must Christianity 
also — which is but the perfected fruit of Juda- 
ism divested at length of its old, hardened, and 
burst shell of ritualism — be divine. More- 
over, many of the most explicit of the Old 
Testament prophecies relate directly and plain- 
ly to Christianity, and testify expressly to its 
divine origin. From the nature of the case, 
too, the argument derived from the fulfillment 
of the prophecies contained in the Old Testa- 
ment is far fuller than that from the fulfillment 
of those in the NeAV. The simple fact that the 
latter were delivered so much later than the 
former, necessarily causes their fulfillment to 
be as yet more incomplete. The larger part 
of the latter probably still remain to be ful- 
filled, but most of the former have already 
completely come to pass. The argument, there- 
fore, drawn from the prophecies of the New 
Testament, is as yet much more limited than 
if it were extended also to those of the Old. 
Nevertheless, we will confine ourselves entire- 
ly to those delivered by our Lord — merely 
asking the reader to bear in mind also those 
already cited from the Old Testament — feeling- 
confident that a sufficient number even of these 
will be found to be true beyond all reasonable 
doubt. Keeping in mind, then, how much the 



196 Positive Evidences. [p ar t II. 

argument is strengthened by the accomplished 
fulfillment of the older prophecies, and reflect- 
ing that therefore it is not unreasonable to ex- 
pect it to continually gather fresh force from 
the future accomplishment of most of the later, 
we cite the following plain predictions of Christ, 
of whose fulfillment no one can doubt : 

1. Christ distinctly foretold his death and 
its circumstances. In Matthew it is said: 
" From that time forth [or about a year and a 
half before his crucifixion ; cf. Lange on Matt. 
vi. 13-21 ; ii. 6, etc.] began Jesus to show unto 
his disciples how that he must go unto Jerusa- 
lem, and suffer many things of the elders, and 
chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and 
be raised again the third day " (Matt. xvi. 21). 
Mark says : "And he began to teach them that 
the Son of man must suffer many things, and 
be rejected of the elders, and of the chief 
priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after 
three days rise again " (Mark viii. 31). Luke, 
that he said: "The Son of man must suffer 
many things, and be rejected of the elders, and 
chief priests, and scribes, and be slain, and be 
raised the third day " (Luke ix. 22). Here are 
three separate and independent testimonies 
to the fact that he uttered a prediction of his 
sufferings in general, of his rejection by the 
chief priests and scribes, that he should die a 



Ch. 5.] Weight of the Evidence, 197 

violent death, and that on the third day he 
should rise again. We have seen how impos- 
sible (Part I., Ch. 4) it is that the accounts 
of the Gospel were forged. The differences 
which otherwise exist between their different 
authors, prove that they were not in collusion. 
Their substantial agreement, therefore, on the 
other hand, shows that their accounts are true. 
And the minute mention of the various cir- 
cumstances above, of the sufferings, rejection, 
death, and resurrection, predicted of Christ by 
himself, is a strong mark of his divine mission. 
Moreover, he also predicted (Matt. xx. 18, 19) 
that he " should be betrayed ; " that the scribes 
should " condemn him to death;" that they 
should " deliver him to the G-entiles;" that 
they should do this for the Gentiles (1) "to 
mock;" (2) "to scourge;" and (3) "to crucify 
him ;" and afterward (Matt. xxvi. 23-25), that 
it should be Judas who should betray him; 
and still farther (Mark x. 33, 34), that the Gen- 
tiles should "spit upon him." Now, all these 
were precisely fulfilled. But no merely human 
foresight could have foretold such incidental 
circumstances. An enthusiast would not have 
anticipated his rejection and crucifixion at 
all, and an impostor would never have dared 
to give, beforehand, so numerous and so mi- 
nute tests of the validity of his claims. The 



198 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

conclusion must be that Christ was a Prophet 
sent from God, and commissioned for a divine 
purpose. 

2. This is still more strongly the case with 
his predictions of his resurrection. We have 
seen in the passages already quoted how dis- 
tinctly he foretold it. It will be our task here- 
after to show how certainly he did rise again 
on the third day. For the present, it will be 
sufficient to direct attention to the irresistible 
force of the evidence the fulfillment of this 
prophecy gives to the divinity of the mission 
of Christ; for however a man might venture 
to utter predictions as to his death and its cir- 
cumstances, and through a wonderful but still 
human prescience be able to forecast them, 
minutely and correctly, yet never could a mere 
man foresee that he should be raised again 
from the dead, and that too on the third day. 
Yet Christ did so predict it : we think it will 
be made evident that thus it accordingly came 
to pass ; and, putting aside for the present the 
evidence given in the miraculous nature of the 
occurrence itself, its prediction alone strongly 
proves the divine mission of him who uttered it. 

3. We proceed to point out briefly some oth- 
ers of his prophecies fulfilled in later times. 
Such was that of the destruction of Jerusalem, 
with its attendant circumstances. Christ pre- 



Ch. 5.] Weight of the Evidence. 199 

dieted (Luke xxi. 20-24), "When ye shall see 
Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know 
that the desolation thereof is nigh ; . . . and 
they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and 
shall be led away captive into all nations ; " 
that, speaking of Jerusalem (Luke xix. 43), 
"The days shall come upon thee that thine 
enemies shall cast a trench round about thee, 
and compass thee round, and keep thee in on 
every side ; " and that, in respect to the temple 
(Matt. xxiv. 2), " The days will come, in the 
which there shall not be left here one stone 
upon another that shall not be thrown clown." 
All this came exactly to pass. Beyond all 
question (cf. Part L, Ch. 4), the accounts con- 
tained in the Gospels were in existence before 
that time. ~No scholar, however skeptical, will 
deny this. Yet it is a notorious historical 
fact (vide Josephus, De Bello. Jud. Lib. i.-vi.) 
that Jerusalem, about forty years afterward, 
was thus besieged by Titus, a trench was lit- 
erally cast around it, and it was entirely sur- 
rounded by the Roman armies; so that it 
was really " compassed round, and kept in on 
every side." Moreover, when taken, it was 
completely " desolated," its inhabitants "fell 
by the sword, and were led away captive into 
all nations," being sold by thousands as slaves 
into the surrounding nations, and the temple 



200 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

was utterly and remarkably destroyed, so that 
there was not "left one stone upon another 
that was not cast down." 

4. Still more remarkable is his prediction of 
the continued subjugation of Jerusalem follow- 
ing its capture. In the same passage of Luke 
(xxi. 24) he said, "And Jerusalem shall be 
trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of 
the Gentiles be fulfilled." In this prophecy, 
following in immediate connection that of the 
capture and devastation of Jerusalem, it is im- 
plied (1) that, from the time of this capture, 
Jerusalem, for a long, indefinite time, should 
continue to exist as a city — "trodden down," 
not destroyed; (2) that its condition during 
that time should be not that of freedom, but 
of subjugation, by "the Gentiles," and that of 
the most grievous and humiliating kind — 
"trodden down;" (3) and, finally, it is inti- 
mated that at last, when "the times of the 
Gentiles" should have been fulfilled, it shall 
be no longer "trodden down of the Gentiles." 
Every one of these particulars, except the last, 
predicted, beyond all cavil, at least eighteen 
hundred years ago, has been already signally 
fulfilled. (1) Jerusalem has never ceased to 
exist as a city. While Babylon and Tyre, 
Corinth, Ephesus, and many others, that were 
overwhelmed by the fire and sword of the Ro- 



Ch. 5.] Weight of the Evidence. 201 

man, or sunk under the still surer ravages of 
time, have risen no more, Jerusalem has ever 
remained an inhabited city. Who but Om- 
niscience, that could have even foreseen her 
terrible devastations, could have also antici- 
pated her recovery ? (2) Nevertheless, it has 
also ever since continued to this day in abject 
subjugation to "the Gentiles." After the Ro- 
mans, the Persians succeeded to the dominion 
over it; from them the Mohammedan invad- 
ers of Arabia wrested it ; then the Crusaders ; 
again the Arabians, and lastly the Turks, have 
successively occupied it unto this day. More- 
over, the condition of the Jews in their own 
holy city has been more constantly miserable 
than perhaps anywhere else in the world. 
Even now they are treated with greater cru- 
elty and contempt in Jerusalem, by its Turk- 
ish conquerors, than are the people of any 
other nation, strangers or natives. In A.D. 
135 the Romans, after suppressing a revolt 
made by the Jews, forbade them, on pain of 
death, from even entering the city, and that 
prohibition lasted till the time of Constantine, 
A.D. 300-337, when it was repealed, but only 
so far as that they were allowed to enter it once 
a year, to wail over the desolation of "the holy 
and beautiful house in which their fathers wor- 
shiped God" (vide McClintock and Strong's Cy- 
9* 



202 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

clopsedia, Art. Jerusalem) ; and ever since, the 
Jews have there been under peculiar oppres- 
sion. Thus Christ's words have been, through 
eighteen hundred years, precisely fulfilled, and 
Jerusalem has been "trodden down of the 
Gentiles." (3) From the expression used, that 
thus it should be "until the times of the Gen- 
tiles be fulfilled," it is probably a correct infer- 
ence to draw that when those "times" shall 
have been accomplished, Jerusalem shall be 
no more trodden down, and the Jew no longer 
a reproach in the earth, but both shall resume 
that independence, prosperity, and greatness 
of station among the nations, which they had 
before. This, of course, still remains unful- 
filled ; but the remarkable fact of the preser- 
vation of the Jews as a nation, through the 
ages, though "scattered" among all nations, 
and "peeled," if it does not directly point to 
its accomplishment, at least proves its possi- 
bility; while for the first time in so many 
centuries it has of late at last seemed capable 
of being fulfilled, and we have been hearing 
from time to time of the probability, under the 
influence of recent great political changes, etc., 
of the Jew once more resuming his dominion 
of the land and city of his fathers. 

5. Christ prophesied also (Matt. xxiv. 14) 
that "this gospel of the kingdom shall be 



Ch. 5.] Weight of the Evidence. 203 

preached in all the world for a witness unto 
all nations." Nothing seemed then more un- 
likely to human foresight than this. Judea 
itself was but a small and despised country, 
and the Jews were everywhere held in detes- 
tation. How unlikely that a doctrine origi- 
nating among Jews, and preached by Jews, 
without either the learning of the Greek or 
the power of the Roman to recommend it, 
should yet find its way down the remotest ages 
of posterity, and throughout all nations ! For 
Christ's doctrine was rejected even by the leaders 
of the Jewish nation itself, and he executed by 
them, and his followers persecuted, as also 
they afterward were by the whole power of the 
Roman Government, in ten great successive 
persecutions. How improbable did it seem 
that it could at all survive, when its own na- 
tion had disowned it, and was striving to 
stamp it out of existence ! or, if it might lin- 
ger obscurely among the hills and valleys of 
Galilee, how unlikely for it to ever spread 
abroad, even to the neighboring and kindred 
tribes! and how utterly impossible that it 
should ever prevail in distant continents, and 
among strange and unknown races of men! 
And what impostor would have dared to give by 
such a declaration such a test for succeeding ages, 
by which they might so easily expose and ridicule 



204 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

Ms claims ? Yet, standing where we are to-day, 
we behold the preaching of the gospel fast ex- 
tending to every land under heaven. Almost 
already is the prophecy fulfilled. The next 
generation will, without doubt, behold every 
nation and tribe, even to the smallest and 
most obscure, visited by the missionary of the 
gospel of Jesus Christ. 

6. Christ also predicted that he should have 
an enduring Church. He said (Matt. xvi. 18), 
"Upon this rock I will build my Church, and 
the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." 
This too seemed most improbable. When, re- 
jected by the Jews themselves, despised by 
the wisdom-loving Creeks, and persecuted un- 
relentingly by the all-powerful Romans ; when 
all of earth that was esteemed wise and power- 
ful was to unite in contemning and extirpating 
it — it was a bold prophecy to foretell, never- 
theless, its perpetual existence. When the 
walls of Babylon and Tyre, and the world- 
wide empire of Alexander, had already fallen 
into the dust before their various enemies, and 
the great empires of Persia, Rome, and of the 
Saracens, were destined to fall in their turn, it 
was most improbable that that of the Peasant 
of Galilee should continue, victorious over all 
the "gates of hell," to remotest times, and in 
remotest nations. Nevertheless, so it has re- 



Ch. 5.] Weight of the Evidence. 205 

ally been. Christ's Church is stronger to-day 
than ever before. 

We confidently offer, then, these prophecies 
as infallible marks of the divine mission of 
Christ, and therefore of the divinity of Chris- 
tianity — the result of that mission. They 
prove him to have been supernaturally en- 
dowed with a knowledge of the future, such 
as has never been approached, in the slightest 
degree, by any one, however wise, outside of 
the prophets of the Bible. The predictions 
alleged of the ancient oracles are not worthy 
of comparison with them. Home has shown 
in his "Introduction" that, in contrast with 
the prophecies of the Bible, those of the ora- 
cles — 1. Gave no prediction spontaneously, but 
only when applied to, and paid for it. 2. Their 
obvious end was to satisfy some trivial curios- 
ity, or to aid some ambitious man in his de- 
signs. 3. They were never given except after 
elaborate, prescribed ceremonies, the neglect 
or wrong observance of any one of which was 
said to vitiate the whole proceeding — thus giv- 
ing an easy way of accounting for a failure in 
the accomplishment of the thing predicted. 
4. The few oracles they at last gave related 
merely to some single, disconnected event. 5. 
They seldom or ever were of such a nature as 
to be in support of morality, purity, justice, 



206 Posit ice Evidences. [Partn. 

etc. 6. They were generally ambiguous, and 
capable of being interpreted either way, ac- 
cording to the event. Thus the famous re- 
sponse rendered to Croesus, when he was about 
to make warxtgainst the Persians, and had in- 
quired whether he should succeed. The ora- 
cle declared that -" he would destroy a great 
empire," which Croesus interpreted to mean 
that he would destroy the Persians. But after 
having been ruined in the war himself, the 
oracle interpreted it to mean, that " he should 
destroy his own empire." 7. Their oracles 
did not extend beyond their own territories, 
nor more than a very few years into the future. 

8. They were not committed to writing in 
books open to public inspection, so that their 
truth or falsity might afterward be examined. 

9. Nevertheless, notwithstanding all the above 
means of escape from detection, the heathen 
oracles were frequently found to be unques- 
tionably false, and, especially in later times, 
came to be held in utter contempt. On the 
contrary, the prophecies of Christ — 1. Were 
delivered openly. 2. They were not such as 
■flattered the* national vanity, but such as hu- 
miliated the Jews, and with the accompani- 
ment of the most fearful denunciations against 
them for their sins. 3. He gained no riches or 
power thereby, but persecution and death. 4. 



Ch. 5.] Weight of the Evidence. 207 

His prophecies were a part of one great whole 
of prophecy, extending in a connected chain 
from Moses, and before Moses, down, and 
treating as its great subject-matter of the es- 
tablishment and prosperity of the kingdom of 
Christ among men. 5. They are all in sup- 
port of morality and true religion. 6. They 
are express and distinct, in many instances, as 
to the circumstances of the event predicted. 
7. Usually they seemed most improbable at 
the time they were uttered. 8. They reached, 
in some cases, hundreds, and even thousands, 
of years forward, and embraced all nations in 
its view. 9. They were committed to writing, 
and have always been open to public inspec- 
tion. 10. Not one has ever been shown to 
be false, while history, as it has during succes- 
sive revolutions unfolded its changing pages, 
has proclaimed, one by one, at long intervals, 
the accomplishment of many of them. 

Say what we may, human penetration is un- 
equal to this. No man, however skillful and 
experienced, can, of his own powers, so fore- 
cast the coming future, or ever has predicted, 
or shall predict with perfect accuracy, a future 
state of things, involving a long, complicated, 
and connected series of events, extending over 
hundreds of years yet to come. Yet such 
are the prophecies of Christ. We confidently 



208 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

claim that they therefore bear the unmistaka- 
ble impress of Him who " seeth all things from 
the beginning;" and standing, as they do, ut- 
terly without a parallel in the records of the 
human race, they prove that they, and the 
Christian system to which they bear witness, 
are superhuman and divine. 



Ch. 6.] Weight of the Evidence. 209 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE EVIDENCE OF MIRACLES — I. IN GENERAL. 

To all the preceding we now add the evidence 
of miracles, both as affording its separate tes- 
timony, and as confirming the testimony of all 
that has gone before. It is, perhaps, impos- 
sible to define a miracle with any certainty, 
farther than by describing its visible results 
apparent in the person or thing upon which it 
has been wrought. To go farther, and attempt 
to define the process and means by which it 
has been accomplished, is surely always uncer- 
tain, and often likely to be positively false. 
That which is in its essential nature above the 
human cannot, it would seem, with any cer- 
tainty, be discovered and known by powers 
that are themselves only human. Revelation 
may disclose it ; but till revelation does disclose 
it, all our attempts are but more or less uncer- 
tain speculations. They may indeed happen 
to be true speculations, but it appears impos- 
sible for us to know certainly whether they are 
true or false till it be revealed to us by a supe- 
rior Intelligence from on high. At any rate, 
since revelation has not told us how a miracle 



210 Positice Evidences. [p ar t II. 

is wrought, we shall not attempt to explain it 
here. It will be sufficient to say, that by mir- 
acles we mean those great works which are 
commonly known by that name, related in the 
Bible as wrought by those who claimed to be 
commissioned from God to deliver his message 
to men. These we claim show superhuman 
wisdom and power attendant upon those who 
wrought them, and prove, whatever may have 
been the modus operandi of their performance, 
that those persons were indeed the authorized 
exponents of a divine message to men. It is 
no objection to this conclusion that we know 
not by what method this result has been ac- 
complished. We may see the marks of divine 
power and wisdom in the result before us 
without knowing at all by what process it was 
done. We perceive, for example, these signs 
in the work of creation around us, yet we know 
nothing at all how God worked in accomplish- 
ing creation ; we know only that in some way 
he has put forth his all- wise and all-powerful 
hand, and performed the work. In miracles, 
also, we may see the manifest tokens of the 
same omnipotent and omniscient Power, and 
in the same way, without knowing the process 
of his working, we may yet surely know and 
confess his presence. Nay, even in the accom- 
plished works of man's power and skill — as a 



C l lt e.] Weight of the EcMence. 211 

watch, a steam-engine, etc. — we may see in the 
results before us manifest evidence that there 
is a work that is certainly the product of an 
intelligence no less than human ; we know that 
no brute, however sagacious, could have pro- 
duced it ; and yet we may not have the most 
distant conception of the process by which it 
has been made — how the metals were wrought 
from the ore, the parts made and adapted to 
each other, etc. And so with a miracle, wrought 
by the power of God attendant upon his mes- 
sengers, or exercised by himself in the person 
of his Son — we may be convinced beyond a 
doubt that here there is "the finger of God," 
though we know nothing as to the manner 
in which God has wrought. It is, then, not 
necessary for us to enter into any explanation 
of the mode by which miracles have been 
wrought; it is sufficient for us to show that 
the miracles of Christ possess characteristics 
that are superhuman, and which show that 
Christianit}^ therefore is divine. 

1. First, let us notice in what manner mira- 
cles give evidence that Christianity is divine. 
1st. They are in entire harmony with all the 
other superhuman characteristics of revelation. 
As we have seen, revelation, if given at all, 
must necessarily be miraculous. It is reason- 
able to expect, moreover, that the miraculous 



212 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

should appear not only in the bare utterance 
of the revelation ; for being uttered, as it is, 
by, or under the authority of, a divine power, 
present and exerted in the act of such utter- 
ance, we might reasonably expect that that 
miraculous power should also appear in the 
attendant circumstances, and such changes 
occur in the natural world around as in the 
ordinary course of things are unknown, and 
such as give visible evidence of the presence 
and active working of that power. Especially 
if it is a divine personage himself that speaks, 
would we expect not only that there should 
come from him divine truth, but also that there 
should break from him divine power, exerted 
in great and significant works of superhuman 
might, wisdom, and goodness. He who was 
of divine descent and divine character, whose 
teaching was above that of men, and who 
uttered such wondrous prophecies, we might 
well expect would also work miracles. The 
absence, then, of miracles would be a serious 
defect in the full and rounded completeness 
of the Christian Evidences. Their presence, 
therefore, harmonizes with the whole system, 
and adds an additional characteristic to that 
body of evidence, which thus, with the testi- 
mony also given by the results, at length lacks 
no characteristic necessary to prove the divin- 



Ch. 6.] Weight of the Eoiclence. 213 

ity of Christianity that we could reasonably 
require. 

In addition, the miracles are themselves a 
revelation in a practical way, and speak most 
emphatically of the power, wisdom, and good- 
ness, resident in Him by whom, or in whose 
name, they are wrought. We know practical- 
ly the skill and knowledge that is possessed 
by an artist, or a mechanic, by the works which 
he produces. So is the power, goodness, etc., 
of Christ revealed by his miracles as well as 
by his words. Thus miracles add to and com- 
plete revelation, while they attest it. They 
fulfill our expectation of a practical display 
of the superhuman attributes of the Revealer, 
and, in perfect harmony with the superhuman 
nature of all his other manifestations, unite 
with them in majestically proclaiming him to 
be divine. 

2d. But miracles are not an evidence mere- 
ly of the completeness and the harmony of 
revelation within itself. They are, besides, 
themselves a separate and positive proof of 
the divinity of revelation. By their own su- 
perhuman character they convinced the men 
to whom revelation was first imparted that it 
was divine, and. their accomplishment remains 
to us a solid and convincing evidence of the 
same great fact still. Peter, on the day of 



214 Positive Evidences. [p ar t II. 

Pentecost, only fifty days after Christ's death, 
in addressing the unbelieving Jews, and that 
in Jerusalem, boldly told them that " Jesus of 
Nazareth " had been " approved of God among 
you by miracles, and wonders, and signs, which 
God did by him in the midst of you, as ye your- 
selves also know " (Acts ii. 29). Paul, too, writ- 
ing to the backsliding Galatians, some of whom 
had begun to deny his apostleship, could also 
confidently appeal to his miracles wrought 
among them, and say, " Truly the signs of an 
apostle were wrought among you in all pa- 
tience, in signs, and wonderland mighty deeds" 
(2 Cor. xii. 12). And our Lord himself said 
of those who had rejected him : " If I had not 
done among them the works which none other 
man did, they had not had sin ; but now have 
they both seen and hated both me and my 
Father. But this cometh to pass that the 
word might be fulfilled that is written in their 
law, They hated me without a cause" (John 
xv. 24, 25). From these passages it appears 
that the Scriptures themselves represent mir- 
acles as signs by which His messengers were 
" approved of God" unto men; that without 
them those messengers, even Christ himself, 
might be rejected without "sin;" but that, 
having seen them, their rejecters had thereby 
" seen " — in the exhibitions of his omnipotence 



Ch. 6.] Weight of the Ecklence. 215 

in working these miracles — " the Father," and 
therefore thenceforward they had no excuse 
for their rejection; they had had all-sufficient 
evidence; "they hated me without a cause." 
On account, therefore, of this conclusive nat- 
ure of the evidence given by miracles, and be- 
cause their reality could not then be disputed, 
our Lord and his apostles appealed to them in 
proof of their divine mission, with evidently 
the utmost confidence. Moreover, we find by 
the quotation of them made subsequently to 
their performance, by the Lord and the apos- 
tles, that the miracles remained for after-years 
also a standing proof of those claims, and, ac- 
cordingly, we here present them as such. 

This proof, however, does not arise merely 
from their character as "wonders" merely. 
The term "miracle," as used in the English 
version to denote the supernatural occurrences 
recorded in the Scriptures, is liable to mislead. 
It is from the Latin miraculmn, meaning, sim- 
ply, something wonderful, and perhaps it is 
generally understood to mean merely a marvel- 
ous thing. But the words used in the Bible 
to denote the miracles have a much larger 
meaning than that, and the words, both in the 
Hebrew and Greek, which mean merely "a 
wonder," are not those used to denote miracles. 
"No doubt all God's works are wonderful ; but 



216 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

when the word is applied to his doings in the 
Bible, it is his works in nature that are gene- 
rally so described. . . . But the word wonder 
is not the word in the Hebrew properly appli- 
cable to what we mean by miracles, and in the 
New Testament our Lord's works are never 
called * miracles ' (dau/xara) at all. The people 
are often said to have ' wondered ' at Christ's 
acts ; but those acts themselves were not in- 
tended simply to produce wonder — they had a 
specific purpose, indicated by the term prop- 
erly applicable to them, and that term is sign. 
This is the sole Hebrew term for what we mean 
by miracle; but there are other words applied 
to our Lord's doings in the New Testament" 
(McClintock and Strong's Cyclopaedia, Art. 
Miracles, Vol. VI., p. 310). 

These latter words, as the same authority 
goes on to show, are terata, dynameis, erga, and 
semeia. 

1. The first "is a term which approaches 
very nearly to our word miracle, and defined 
by Liddell and Scott, in their Greek Lexicon, 
as a 'sign, wonder, marvel, used of any appear- 
ance or event in which men believed that they 
could see the finger of God.' But, with that 
marvelous accuracy which distinguishes the 
language of the Greek Testament, our Lord's 
works are never called terata in the Gospels." 



Ch. 6.] Weight of the Evidence. 217 

It is used, however, in Acts ii. 19, and Heb. 
ii. 4, in reference to our Lord's works, and 
elsewhere frequently, to denote the works of 
the apostles. 

2. Dynameis is the word from which we de- 
rive our word dynamics. It is "the most com- 
mon term for our Lord's miracles" in the first 
three Gospels, and signifies poivers — i. e., facul- 
ties, or capacities, for doing something. "The 
teaching, therefore, of this word, dynameis, 
powers, or faculties, is that our Lord's works 
were perfectly natural and ordinary to him. 
They were his capacities, just as sight and 
speech are ours. Now, in a brute animal, ar- 
ticulate speech would be a miracle, because it 
does not lie within the range of its capacities ; 
... it does lie within the compass of our fac- 
ulties, and so in us it is no miracle. Similarly, 
the healing of the sick, the giving sight to the 
blind, the raising of the dead, etc. — things en- 
tirely beyond the range of our powers, yet lay 
entirely within the compass of our Lord's ca- 
pacities, and were in accordance with the laws 
of his nature." 

3. Erga, the next word, used almost wholly 
by John to denote our Lord's miracles, means 
works. "This, term stands in a very close re- 
lation to the preceding word, dynameis, or fac- 
ulties. A faculty, when exerted, produces an 

10 



218 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

ergon, or work. Whatever powers or capaci- 
ties we have, whenever we use them, bring 
forth a corresponding result. . . . Now, had 
our Lord been merely a man, any and every 
work beyond the compass of men's powers 
would have been a miracle. . . . But the Gos- 
pel of John ... is everywhere penetrated 
with the conviction that a higher nature was 
united in him to his human nature ; . . . and 
so here. Our Lord's miracles to him are sim- 
ply and absolutely erga, works; but, as we 
have seen before, they are also divine works, 
1 works of God.' Still, in Christ, according to 
John's view, they were perfectly natural. They 
were the necessary and direct result of that 
divine nature which in him was inclissolubly 
united with his human nature. The last thing 
which the apostle would have thought about 
them was that they were 'miraculous' — i. e., 
wonderful. That God should give his only-be- 
gotten Son to save the world was wonderful. 
That such a Being should ordinarily do works 
entirely beyond the limits of man's powers did 
not seem to John wonderful, and hence the 
simple but deeply significant term (works) by 
which he characterizes them." 

4. Finally, the fourth term, semeia, con- 
stantly also used by John, means signs. This 
may be regarded as the common generic term 



C h. 6.] Weight of the Evidence. 219 

applicable to all the supernatural works nar- 
rated in the Scriptures. "This is the sole 
Hebrew term for what we mean by miracle. 
. . . The one proper term for miracle, through- 
out the whole Bible, is semeion, a sign" (Mc- 
Clintock and Strong). Now, John, in so fre- 
quently using this term along with that of 
erga, works, does not do so without a very sig- 
nificant meaning. "Such works [as we have 
considered above] were not wrought without a 
purpose ; nor did such a Being come without 
having a definite object to justify his manifes- 
tation. . . . Now, John points this out in call- 
ing our Lord's works semeia, signs." This "tells 
us in the plainest language that these works 
were tokens calling the attention of men to 
what was then happening; and especially is 
it used in the Old Testament of some mark, 
or signal, confirming a promise, or covenant. 
Such a 'sign' God gave to Caim(Gen. iv. 15); 
... to Noah (Gen. ix. 13) ; ... to Abraham 
(Gen. xvii. 11), . . . and to the Jews by the 
Sabbath-day (Ex. xxxi. 13 ; Ezek. xx. 12)," in 
pledge of his particular promises made to 
them, respectively. So also John (John ii. 11) 
calls the changing of water into wine at Cana 
"this beginning of signs" (not " miracles," as it 
is wrongly translated in the English version) ; 
and (John iv. 54) the healing of the centurion's 



220 Positive Evidences. [Partli. 

son as " the second sign," "as being the first 
and second indications of Christ's wielding 
those powers which belong to God as the Cre- 
ator and Author of nature, and which, there- 
fore, pledged the God of nature, as the sole 
possessor of these powers, to the truth of any 
one's teaching who came armed with them." 
Therefore it was that the Jews asked for "a 
sign " (Matt. xii. 38 ; xvi. 1 ; John ii. 18 ; vi. 
30), and some believed " when they saw the 
signs which he did " (John ii. 23) ; and Mcode- 
mus, % the "Pharisee" and "ruler," confessed, 
" Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come 
from God ; for no man can do these signs that 
thou doest except God be with Mm" (John iii. 
2). " Thus John's word shows that our Lord's 
works had a definite purpose. They were not 
wrought at random, but were intended for a 
special object. What this was is easy to tell. 
. . . The herald of a divine dispensation must 
have proof to offer that he does come from 
God, and such proof as pledges the divine at- 
tributes to the truth of his teaching. This is 
the reason why the Old Testament dispensa- 
tion was one of signs. On special occasions 
justifying the divine interference, and in the 
persons of its great teachers, the prophets, su- 
pernatural proof was given in two ways. . . . 
The divine omniscience was pledged to the truth 



Ch. 6.] Weight of the Evidence. 221 

of their words by the prediction of future 
events, and his omnipotence by their working- 
things beyond the ordinary range of nature. 
The Old Testament proofs of a revelation were 
prophecy and miracle. We can think of no 
others, and nothing less would suffice." Ac- 
cordingly, Christ, as "the bearer to mankind 
of God's final and complete message," not only 
delivered prophecies, but wrought works, which 
were signs of his divine mission upon earth. 

This is the true significance of what we call 
"miracles." "They are signs, and wonderful 
signs, and such wonderful signs as could not 
have been wrought by finite power" (Smith's 
Bible Diet., Art. Miracles, Vol. III., p. 1963). 
They are therefore proofs, and unmistakable 
proofs, of the presence of the power and author- 
ity of God attendant upon those who accom- 
plished them, and thus they attest the divine 
character of the message which they professed 
to bring from God to men. 

Such is the evidential force of miracles, wher- 
ever they may really exist. If, then, we can 
show also, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the 
accounts of them which we have in the Gospels 
are true, and that they were really wrought by 
Christ, the conclusion is inevitable that Christ 
was truly sent of God, and therefore that his 
religion is divine. 



222 Positive Ecjdences. [Part II. 

This proof has- been already, in great meas- 
ure, set forth in Part First, in the considera- 
tion given there (particularly in Chapter IV.) 
of the authenticity of the evidence. The pos- 
sibility of miracles, and the competency of 
evidence to prove their occurrence, are also 
there shown. Our space will not allow us to 
restate that proof here. We must at this 
point be content with referring the reader 
back to it, if he wishes for a. full view of all 
the argument in the case. Suffice it to say 
now, that for the actual occurrence of the mira- 
cles related of Christ, we have the concurrent 
and uncontradicted testimony of the New Tes- 
tament writers, given in such a manner, and 
under such circumstances, as that, on every 
principle by which any testimony in any case 
is held to be valid, their testimony in this 
case must be received as true. In addition, 
however, to the evidence presented in Part 
First in support of this position, and which 
the reader is requested to review, at least be- 
fore he passes an unfavorable judgment, we 
call attention to the considerations following : 

1st. The circumstances under which they 
were wrought forbade mistake or ' deception 
{vide Leslie's "Four Tests," quoted in Watson's 
"Institutes/' Part I., Ch. 12). (1) They were 
such as men's outward senses could judge of 



ch . 6 .j Weight of the Evidence. 223 

them. The feeding of the thousands in the 
desert from the few loaves and fishes, on two 
occasions, by Christ ; his healing of the para- 
lytic, of the man born blind, and of various 
lepers ; his raising of the widow's son from 
the dead, and of Lazarus, who had been dead 
three days, until his body had become offen- 
sive; greatest of all, his own resurrection and 
ascension — these and others were things such 
as men could judge of by their senses, and not 
like many falsely alleged to be miracles — as, 
e. g., that alleged by the papists of the bread 
and wine of the communion being changed 
into flesh and blood; for such a change is 
wholly imperceptible to any of the senses, but 
those of Christ appealed to the senses for the 
evidence of their reality — as it is reasonable 
to expect a miracle to do. (2) They were done 
publicly, in the face of the world. Many were 
wrought before accusers and enemies, and in 
the presence of vast numbers of men. In this 
they differ from all pretended miracles, which 
have usually been performed in private, and 
have not been witnessed by any but those di- 
rectly concerned in them. (3) In the case of 
the miracle of the resurrection of Christ, the 
observance of the " first day of the week" as 
its memorial, became an institution of the 
Christian Church. It is a good proof of the 



224 Positive Evidences. [p ar t II. 

reality of an event if we find an institution, 
originating in historical times, and of whose 
origin no other account can be given, still ex- 
isting professedly as a memorial of that event. 
Such is the Christian Sabbath (vide Smith's 
Bible Dictionary, Art, "The Lord's Day"), 
and as such it remains a proof of the resurrec- 
tion of our Lord. (4) Its observance was in- 
stituted directly after the resurrection (vide 
Smith, ib., and cf. Acts ii. 7 ; 1 Cor. xvi. 1, 2 ; 
Heb. x. 25), when the proof against it, if false, 
was easily accessible, and when its observance 
would publicly and generally call attention — 
among the Jews especially, by the remarkable 
change of observance from the seventh to the 
first clay of the week — to the false miracle al- 
leged* to have taken place on that day. Yet, 
though public notice was thus called to it, and 
though refutation would have been (as we shall 
see more fully in the next chapter) most easy, 
and though the Christians suffered the most 
bitter and violent hostility and persecution, 
yet the refutation was never given. "You 
may challenge all the world to show that 
any action is fabulous which has all four of 
these marks. The matters of fact — e. g., of 
Mohammed, or what is fabled of the heathen 
deities — do all w r ant some of them. First, for 
Mohammed — he pretended to no miracles, as he 



Ch. 6.] Weight of the Evidence. 225 

tells us himself in the Koran (c. 6, etc.), and 
all those which are told of him do all want the 
first two marks; for his pretended journey- 
to the moon, his night journey to Jerusalem, 
and thence to heaven, etc., were not performed 
before anybody, nor were they capable of being 
perceived by the senses of men. The same is 
true of the fabtes told of the heathen gods — as 
of Jupiter's turning himself into a bull, etc. 
Nobody ever saw it, and besides, the folly and 
unworthiness of such senseless pretended mir- 
acles are enough to condemn them. Again, 
the public observances — as the Bacchanalia, 
and other feasts, etc., instituted in commemo- 
ration of their deities — are not pretended to 
have begun at the time and place when the 
occurrences alleged to have given rise to them 
took place, but are acknowledged to have been 
first ordained by others in their memory ages 
afterward, when imposture was not so easily 
detected. And so as to the Romish miracles, 
reported to have been wrought by the saints, 
etc., since the days of the apostles — they all 
want the first marks. And besides, they usu- 
ally are only ' such as make fools stare and 
wise men suspect;' and as they begin, so they 
end — in vain— in establishing nothing worthy." 
— Home. But the miracles of the Bible were 
not afraid of the open day, of scrutiny by en- 
10* 



226 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

emies, and of trial by the senses. They left 
also an enduring memorial existing from the 
time of their occurrence, they had a wise and 
beneficent end, they were worthy of God, and 
they established the Christian Church. In all 
this they are without parallel in the records 
of the human race. 

2d. The character of Christ's miracles in its 
very nature bears witness to their truth. Not 
only were they worthy of God's working, but 
we also have such evidence thereof as the fol- 
lowing, viz. : (1) Their great number. Very 
many are individually mentioned. Many oth- 
ers are mentioned only generally and incident- 
ally (e. g., as in Matt. viii. 16, where it is said 
" they brought unto him many that were pos- 
sessed with devils, and he cast out the spirits 
with his word, and healed all that were sick," 
etc.). (2) Their greatness. They were such 
as could not be feigned, but were such as sat- 
isfying the hunger of thousands from a few 
loaves and fishes, calming the winds and the 
sea, curing the lepers, and raising the dead. 

(3) Their simplicity. All were clone without 
any ostentatious show. And they were done 
at a touch, by a word, with the utmost ease. 

(4) Their disinterestedness. None were per- 
formed for reward ; none ever gained him any 
worldly benefit whatever. (5) Their effects in 



Ch. 6.] Weight of the Evidence. 227 

converting many incredulous persons, and even 
some enemies (as, e. g., Paul), to embrace his 
doctrine. (6) "They were actually admitted 
as facts by the [early] opposers of Christianity. 
Celsus, and Hierocles, and Julian the Apos 
tate, and the Jewish rabbis in the Talmud — 
all of whom wrote and argued bitterly against 
Christianity — have yet all left their acknowl- 
edgment of the actual occurrence of these 
events, accounting for them by magical arts, 
which Celsus affirms Christ must have learned 
in Egypt" (Johnson's Cyclopaedia, Art. Mira- 
cles). (7) Their great variety, which yet, 
very remarkably, evidently constituted one or- 
ganic whole. This forms a very striking view 
of the miracles, and therefore we have reserved 
it for the last, that we may give it more in full 
by appending an extract from Westcott ("In- 
troduction to Gospels," App. E), who, to show 
their singular harmony, completeness, and 
unity, both in themselves and in the revela- 
tion they disclose, gives the following (tenta- 
tive) classification : 

I. Miracles in Nature. — 1. Miracles of Crea- 
tive Power, (a) Christ the Source of joy— 
the character of nature changed : the water 
made wine (John ii. 1-12). (b) Christ the 
Source of subsistence — substance increased: 
the bread multiplied (Matt. xiv. 15-21, etc.). 



228 Positice Ecidences. [Part II. 

(c) Christ the Source of strengtn — force con- 
trolled : the walking on the water (Matt. xiv. 
22-26, etc.). 2. Miracles of Providence, (a) 
Of Blessing, a. The founding of the outward 
Church : the first miraculous draught of fishes 
(Luke v. 1-11) ; b. The Defense of the Church 
without: the storm stilled (Matt. viii. 23-27, 
etc.) ; c. The Support of the Church from with- 
in : the stater in the fish's mouth (Matt. xvii. 
24-27) ; d. The Church of the Future : the sec- 
ond miraculous draught of fishes (John xxi. 1- 
23). (b) Of Judgment: the fig-tree cursed 
(Matt. xxi. 19, etc.). 

II. Miracles on Man. — 1. Miracles of Per- 
sonal Faith, (a) Organic Defects, a. Faith 
special : the two blind men in the house (Matt, 
ix. 29-31) ; b. Faith absolute : Bartimeus re- 
stored (Matt. xx. 29-34, etc.). (b) Chronic 
Impurity, a. Open leprosy (Matt. viii. 1-4, 
etc.) ; b. Secret : the woman with the issue 
(Matt. ix. 20-22). 2. Miracles of Interces- 
sion, (a) Organic Defects : the blind, and the 
deaf and dumb (Mark viii. 22-26 ; vii. 31-37). 
(b) Mortal Sicknesses, a. Fever : The noble- 
man's son healed (John iv. 46-54) ; b. Paraly- 
sis : The man borne of four (Matt. ix. 1-8). 
3. Miracles of Love, (a) Organic Defect: the 
blind man healed (John ix.). (b) Disease, a. 
Fever (Matt. viii. 14, 15, etc.); b. Dropsy 



Ch. 6.] Weight of the, Evidence. 229 

(Luke xiv. 1-6); c. The withered hand (Matt. 
xii. 9-13) ; d. The impotent man (John v. 1- 
17) ; e. The spjrit of infirmity (Luke xiii. 10- 
17). (c) Death, a. In the death-chamber : a 
girl raised (Matt. ix. 18, etc.) ; b. Upon the 
bier : a young man raised (Luke vii. 11-18) ; 
c. From the tomb : a tried friend raised (John 
XL). 

III. Miracles Wrought on the Spirit-ivorld. — 
1. Miracles of Intercession, (a) Simple inter- 
cession : the dumb man possessed by a devil 
(Matt. ix. 32-34; xii. 22, etc.). (b) Interces- 
sion based on natural ties: a. The Syrophe- 
nician's daughter (Matt. xv. 21-28, etc.) ; b. 
The lunatic boy (Matt. xvii. 14, etc.). 2. Mir- 
acles of Antagonism, (a) In the synagogue : 
the unclean spirit cast out (Mark i. 21-28, 
etc.). (b) In the tombs : the legion cast out 
(Matt. .viii. 28-34). 

This is totally different from all false mira- 
cles. In its completeness and unity it dis- 
closes, jjist as we should expect, the presence 
of God supernaturally working in the Person 
of Christ at all points, wherever it came into 
contact w T ith human life and human circum- 
stances, with unity and significance, with good- 
ness and power — breaking forth, as we should 
expect it, on all occasions, and in all direc- 
tions, wherever an occasion demanded its ex- 



230 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

ercise, and giving us assurance in itself of its 
reality, and of the divine mission of Him whom 
it attended. 

Thus, then, we assert the divinity of Chris- 
tianity by the evidence of the miracles wrought 
by Christ. This, as to those miracles in gen- 
eral. There is one supereminent miracle, how- 
ever, which is also the great corner-stone of 
Christian faith — the resurrection of Christ 
from the dead. Thus we will consider it in 
particular, not only as the "fundamental and 
crowning miracle of the gospel," and carrying 
with it the fact of its own existence as such 
the reality also of all the other miracles,* but 
also, in its single evidence, indisputably prov- 
ing that Christ w r as sent of God. 

*"In the resurrection," says Westcott, referring to his 
classification, given above, "all the forms of miraculous 
working are included. The course of nature was controlled, 
for there was a great earthquake ; the laws of material exist- 
ence were overruled, for when the doors were shut Jesus 
came into the midst of his disciples, and when their eyes 
were ' opened ' he vanished out of their sight ; the reign of 
death was overthrown, for many of the saints came out of 
their graves, and went into the holy city ; the powers of the 
spiritual world were called forth, for angels watched at the 
sepulcher, and ministered to believers. Thus harmonious is 
the whole strain of Scripture. 'All things are double over 
against another, and God hath made nothing imperfect.' " 



Ch. 7.] » Weight of the Evidence. 231 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE EVIDENCE OF MIEACLES — II. THE EESUE- 
EECTION OF CHEIST. 

The resurrection of Christ is one of the strong- 
est proofs that we could ask of the divinity of 
Christianity. As such it was constantly cited 
by the apostles in proof of their doctrine, on 
the first preaching of the gospel. Peter, at Je- 
rusalem, upon the day of Pentecost, less than 
two months after the resurrection, occupied a 
large part of his discourse with showing that, 
in fulfillment of prophecy, "this Jesus hath 
God raised up, whereof we are all witnesses" 
(Acts ii. 32), and that from this, and by his sub- 
sequent ascension and exaltation, and shedding 
forth the Holy Ghost, "therefore let all the 
house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath 
made that same Jesus, whom ye have cruci- 
fied, both Lord and Christ" (verse 36) ; and 
so strong and convincing was this evidence, 
even to those who had crucified Christ, that 
"when they heard this, they were pricked in 
their hearts, and said unto Peter and the rest 
of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall 
we do?" (verse 37). This will serve to show 



232 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

us the evidential value of miracles in general, 
and that of the resurrection of Christ in par- 
ticular ; and this value was not a mere tempo- 
rary one, and confined to the time and place 
in which the resurrection had occurred, nor to 
the people who were familiar with the circum- 
stances of its occurrence, but we find that Paul 
also, some twenty years afterward, at Athens, 
among a people as yet entirely unacquainted 
with any fact of Christianity, "preached unto 
them Jesus and the resurrection." And he 
preached it too as the evidence of the truth 
and authority of Christianity in calling men to 
repentance, saying, "And the times of this ig- 
norance God winked at ; but now commandeth 
all men everywhere to repent : because he hath 
appointed a day in the which he will judge the 
world in righteousness by that man whom he 
hath ordained ; whereof lie hath given assurance 
unto all men in that he hath raised him from the 
dead" (Acts xvii. 18, 30, 31). In another 
place (1 Cor. xv. 14) he elaborately sets it forth 
as a fact of the utmost importance to the as- 
surance of our faith, declaring even, "And if 
Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, 
and your faith is also vain." Farther citation 
would be superfluous. In the Epistles of the 
New Testament alone (vide Angus's "Hand- 
book," p. 360) there are more than fifty refer- 



Ch. 7.] Weight of the Evidence. 233 

ences to the resurrection of Christ, showing 
that it was considered as of special importance 
in the system of Christian doctrine. Its spe- 
cial importance as an Evidence fully appears 
in the above quotations, and accordingly we 
give it here a special prominence among the 
miracles as affording peculiar and irrefragable 
evidence of the divinity of the religion of 
Christ. 

1. First we offer, over and above the gene- 
ral evidence already given for the truth of the 
facts contained in the Gospel narratives, the 
following special evidence in proof of the res- 
urrection of Christ in particular : 

(a) The disciples who gave their testimony 
could not have been deceivers in such a case, 
and have put forth an invented tale of his 
resurrection. 1st. No other explanation can 
be given of the disappearance of the body of 
Jesus. That he died by crucifixion is undoubt- 
ed. The testimony of all the writers, even 
that of the heathen historian (vide ante, p. 94), 
is that he was so put to death. We have there- 
fore the same proof of this as we have of any 
other fact recorded in Tacitus and those other 
writers. We take their statements as that of 
reliable historians who took pains to satisfy 
themselves, by competent evidence existing 
at the time they wrote, that the facts they re- 



234 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

corded were true before they recorded them. 
Moreover, the Jews, who still remain the strong 
opposers of Christianity, and who at the time 
of his alleged resurrection had every means 
as well as every motive to expose such a de- 
ception, never doubted that he had died as 
a malefactor; and, as we shall subsequently 
see, in the very nature of the case, his death 
must necessarily have really occurred. What 
then became of his body ? That it had disap- 
peared from the tomb on the third day, not- 
withstanding the Jews had placed around it a 
guard of Roman soldiers to watch for three 
days, within which time they knew Christ 
had prophesied he should rise again, is also 
undoubted; for, if it were still in the tomb 
when the three days' watch had ended, then 
the Jews could have easily confounded the 
Christians by thus disproving by the soldiers 
this alleged fact, when they preached it in 
Jerusalem itself but a little more than a month 
afterward, and preached it too as being one of 
the very corner-stones of the Christian doc- 
trine. Manifestly, a Christian Church, under 
such circumstances, could never have been 
formed in Jerusalem; nor could thus a con- 
vert have ever been made of an ardent Jewish 
enemy there, as acute and able as Saul of Tar- 
sus. Yet it cannot be questioned that a Chris- 



Ch. 7.] Weight of the Evidence. 235 

tian Church was formed in Jerusalem, and 
continued to exist there, despite the utmost 
persecutions ; and it is certain, also, that Saul 
was at length convinced — by the evidence of 
this very resurrection — of the truth of the 
Christian religion, and became a convert. The 
two facts then so minutely and harmoniously 
related in the Gospels, of the death of Jesus, 
and of the disappearance afterward of his body, 
are true. What then became of the body? 
The Christians say that Jesus rose from the 
dead, and afterward ascended into heaven- — the 
Jews, that his disciples had come by night, and 
stole his body away. These are the only two 
explanations offered, and are doubtless the 
only two possible to be offered. Since the 
dead body of Jesus had disappeared from the 
sealed tomb in which it had been placed, de- 
spite the soldiers guarding it, it must either 
have been stolen away, or he must have risen 
from the dead. The evidence shows that we 
cannot accept the former explanation, and that 
the latter therefore is the true and only con- 
clusion. 

1. It is highly improbable, in the nature of 
the case, that the former explanation is true. 
(1) It is improbable, because the terror under 
which the disciples evidently were at the time, 
as well as the fewness of their numbers ; the 



236 Positive Evidences. [PartlL 

fact that they were taken by surprise by the 
crucifixion of Jesus taking place so soon after 
his triumphant entry into Jerusalem ; the fact 
that the mass of the people were against them, 
and all the authorities — all this would have 
deterred them from even planning such an 
attempt against a band of the dreaded Roman 
soldiers, and, in all likelihood, would have pre- 
vented them from succeeding, if they had made 
the attempt. (2) The time and place, and the 
other circumstances, were very unfavorable 
for the success of such an attempt. The time 
was that of the Passover, in which there is 
always a full moon ; the city and its suburbs 
were unusually crowded with people come up 
to attend the Passover ; the sepulcher was just 
outside the city walls, and there was a guard 
of Roman soldiers, for whom it was death to 
sleep upon their post, set around the sepulcher 
itself. It was highly improbable, if even they 
could succeed in penetrating to the cave, that 
they could ever have borne off the body with- 
out being seen. (3) But if they had, they 
could scarcely have succeeded in disposing of 
it in concealment where it would not have been 
discovered, either by chance, or by the officers 
searching for it. The difficulty of doing so in 
criminal cases, even when the crime has been 
for some time unknown, and where the crimi- 



Ch. 7.] Weight of the Evidence. 237 

nal has had the facilities of a lonely neighbor- 
hood, and the aid of modern scientific knowl- 
edge to help him, is well known. Scarce any 
such criminal escapes ultimate detection. A 
human body is very difficult to dispose of. But 
we are to suppose that these disciples, almost 
all of them Galileans, and therefore compara- 
tively strangers in Jerusalem, ignorant of all 
scientific means of getting rid of the body, and 
in a crowded city and neighborhood, could 
do what criminals with every opportunity find 
it so hard to do, and effectually conceal the 
body, though they had hem previously suspected of 
an intention to commit the theft, and the theft had, 
immediately after its commission, been discovered. 
(4) But if they had succeeded in doing it, why 
were they not at once arrested for the theft? 
They continued to stay in the city at least fifty 
days afterward, and even boldly preached pub- 
licly the resurrection of Jesus, the very doctrine 
against which their enemies had taken such 
extraordinary precautions. They thus ren- 
dered themselves peculiarly obnoxious to the 
Jewish authorities, by charging them, in this 
way, with basely killing their own Messiah. 
By publicly proving the falsity of the alleged 
resurrection, on the evidence of the soldiers, 
and by their arrest, trial, and conviction, the 
priests and scribes could have forever triumph- 



238 Positive Evidences. [p ar t II. 

antly destroyed that hated Christian sect — a 
sect which they did attempt with all their pow- 
er to destroy by the most dreadful persecution. 
Yet, though the apostles were more than once 
arrested, they were never arrested for this 
crime; though other charges were brought 
against them before the legal tribunals, this 
one never was. But, moreover, if the Jews 
neglected this, why did the Romans do so? 
They were a people jealous in the extreme for 
the dignity of Rome. The disciples, if they 
stole the body, had broken the Roman seal 
which had been placed upon the stone, and 
they thus had committed an indignity and a 
crime against the Roman Government. Yet 
they were allowed to go free in the city un- 
disturbed, and no proceedings whatever were 
had against them, by either Jews or Romans. 
(5) Again, it is exceedingly improbable that so 
many men, inured to watching in the open air, 
should have fallen asleep at once; or if they 
did, that with all the noise unavoidably made 
in removing the "great stone" which had been 
used to stop up the entrance to the tomb, and 
in bearing forth the body of a full-grown man 
— requiring several men — through the midst 
of the soldiers, not one should have been 
aroused and discover the thieves. (6) And 
finally, it is most improbable that, if they had 



Ch. 7.] Weight of the Evidence. 239 

all thus fallen asleep, they could have escaped 
punishment. ~No nation has ever had stricter 
discipline than the Romans. It was death for 
a soldier to sleep upon his post. Yet we hear 
nothing of any punishment awarded them for 
their flagrant breach of discipline. It is not 
likely that the Roman officers would for any 
reason have remitted their punishment ; still 
more unlikely is it that the soldiers would have 
accused themselves in returning such a report 
of their conduct in explanation of the disap- 
pearance of the body. 

2. But if their account is true, it is certain 
that it cannot be known to be true; for, be 
it remembered, upon the testimony of these 
deniers of the resurrection themselves, there 
were no actual witnesses of the theft, except 
the thieves themselves. The Jews were not 
there ; the soldiers, as it is claimed, were asleep 
— if any one but the thieves had beheld it, 
they would certainly have arrested them and 
aroused the soldiers. Then how can it be 
proved that the body was stolen ? If the sol- 
diers were asleep when the body left the tomb, 
then all that they can truly testify to is, that 
when they awoke they found the tomb broken 
open and the body gone. But they cannot say 
how ; and so, though they had slept, the resur- 
rection, so far as that is concerned, might have 



240 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

taken place. But if they were awake, why did 
they not prevent the theft? 

3. In opposition to this improbable, incon- 
sistent, yea, evidently false, account, we have 
the only other reasonable explanation — given 
directly, clearly, and consistently, by all the 
disciples — that after his death they saw him 
again, alive ; that they talked, ate, and other- 
wise associated with him, at intervals, for forty 
days ; and that he himself, who was so per- 
fectly truthful and holy, assured them again 
and again, and gave them bodily proofs of the 
truth of his assertion, that he had really risen 
from the dead, even as it had been foretold, 
and as it " behooved him " to do. (1) In the 
Jews' explanation of the disappearance of his 
body, we have just seen an instance of the ex- 
treme difficulty of forging without detection a 
tale consistent with the circumstances and 
with itself, even by those possessed of the 
greatest advantages of power, learning, etc. 
Greenleaf has also pointed out (vide ante, p. 
106) the almost impossibility of doing it. But 
could the humble disciples, powerless and un- 
learned as they were, have been able to forge 
a tale about so remarkable a matter as not to 
be inconsistent, and therefore open to expos- 
ure by enemies, who, being in power, had ev- 
ery means of detection at their command, as 



Ch. 7.] Weight of the Evidence. 241 

they had every motive to prompt them to use 
those means ? Yet neither they nor the most 
acute minds, during the centuries since, have 
ever been able to show the forgery in the least 
degree. (2) The disciples, we are told, were 
themselves very incredulous, and "slow to be- 
lieve " the fact. (3) They had no motive to 
utter such a falsehood. There was no fame, 
or riches, or power, to be gained in this world 
by it, and surely they could expect in the next 
nothing but punishment for such a stupendous 
and blasphemous falsehood. Only dangers, 
persecutions, torture, exile, and death, awaited 
them here from preaching the resurrection, 
and, if false, eternal ruin after death. Is it 
conceivable that any man would be so carried 
away by madness as to dare all this in support 
of a known, monstrous, and incredible lie ? It 
is inconceivable that so many men, through so 
many years, with such perfect unanimity, and 
under such sufferings, should persist in doing 
so. (4) But had they all, nevertheless, so 
agreed, it is still improbable that they would 
have ventured to publish this forged account, 
as the apostles did in Jerusalem, in the very 
place, and immediately after the time, in which 
the thing thus falsely alleged Avas said by 
them to have taken place. They might have 
gone to a distant country and waited many 
11 



242 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

years, but forgers such as these would scarcely 
have dared to utter their forgery in the very 
place where their enemies were most numer- 
ous and powerful, and where every facility for 
exposing and punishing them existed. (5) If 
they had madly ventured to take this last im- 
probable step, it is impossible to believe that 
they could ever have so successfully escaped 
detection and exposure. Let it be remembered 
that no such exposure was ever made; yet 
they repeated their statements over and over 
again, sometimes separately, sometimes togeth- 
er. They were at various times arrested and 
examined before the very highest legal tribu- 
nals, both Jewish and Roman, by men trained 
to the business of detecting and punishing 
crime, and whose imperative official duty it 
was to do so; and those authorities had the 
greatest motives for punishing them, and 
no motive for shielding them. Nevertheless, 
there was never found any discrepancy in their 
testimony, and there was never any conviction 
secured for this crime, nor any punishment 
awarded for it. (6) Lastly, the general char- 
acter of the apostles forbids us from suspect- 
ing them of such a forgery. Their character 
has never been impugned. Their whole histo- 
ry, as well as the whole tenor of their spirit, 
manifested in their writings that remain to us, 



Ch. 7.] Weight of the Evidence. 243 

show them to be men of the most undoubted 
purity, benevolence, and truth. They were 
incapable of designedly framing so false and 
misleading a story, even had they been able ; 
and their united, positive, and life-long testi- 
mony to the resurrection of Christ, with no 
evidence against it, is entitled to be received as 
a true relation of the facts they attest. 

Since, then, it is, in the first place, so highly 
improbable, in the nature of the case, that the 
disciples could have stolen the body of Jesus ; 
since, also, if they had, it could not have been 
known, but, at the utmost, only suspected ; and 
since, too, we have the positive, continued, con- 
curring, and uncontradicted testimony of so 
many witnesses of the highest character to 
the reality of the Lord's resurrection, we must, 
in all fairness, believe that Christ was seen by 
the apostles after his crucifixion, and that they 
were entirely innocent of all forgery in their 
testimony to this fact, and of all intention to 
deceive. 

(h) But neither were they self- deceived. 
Modern objectors, peeing the hopelessness of 
proving them deceivers, have fallen upon the 
theory of self-deception, in the case of the apos- 
tles, in order to explain the facts. In answer, 
we present the following arguments condensed 
from Row ("Christian Evidences," etc.): 



244 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

From the Pauline and the other Epistles of 
the New Testament it is proved — 

1. That it is an unquestionable fact that the 
Church which had been for the time dissolved 
at the crucifixion was reconstructed on the ba- 
sis of the resurrection. 

2. That the belief in it originated on the 
spot, and within a few clays of the crucifixion, 
and that the fact was openly proclaimed then 
and there as the new foundation on which the 
Church was to be erected and the Messiahship 
of Jesus to be set up. 

3. That all the efforts of Paul and his fel- 
low r -persecutors failed to discover that this be- 
lief was the result of fraud or delusion. 

4. That the apostolic body believed that 
they had two interviews with Jesus, in which 
they saw him alive after his crucifixion. 

5. That two of the apostles were persuaded 
that they had two private interviews with him. 

6. That upward of five hundred brethren 
believed that they saw him alive after his cru- 
cifixion, when they were assembled in a body. 

7. That Paul was persuaded that he had 
seen him. 

8. That large numbers of believers were 
firmly persuaded that, in consequence of his 
resurrection, they had become possessed of 
certain supernatural gifts and endowments. 



Ch. 7.] Weight of the Evidence. 245 

9. That the belief in the resurrection acted 
as a mighty power of moral and spiritual re- 
generation. 

These facts effectually disprove — 1. Every 
form of the theory of their mythic or legendary 
origin ; 2. That it is impossible that the belief 
in the resurrection could have grown up in the 
gradual manner in which ordinary fictions do, 
at distant times and places ; 3. That until 
some other equally rational account, affording 
an adequate explanation of all the subsequent 
historical facts of the Christian Church, can 
be propounded, we are fully entitled to accept 
this, the account which the Church has ever 
put forward as the true one, and the sole 
ground of its existence. 

(a) To give such an explanation, the theory 
of "visions" has been advanced — viz., that 
Christ never rose from the dead, but that some 
one or more of his enthusiastic followers fan- 
cied they saw him alive, and mistook the cre- 
ation of their distempered imaginations for an 
actual resurrection, and succeeded in persuad- 
ing the other disciples that he was risen from 
the dead. These, in turn, also took to seeing 
visions of the risen Jesus, and fancying not 
only that they had interviews with him, but 
that they received his orders to reconstruct 
his Church on the basis of his resurrection, 



246 Positive Evidences.. [p ar t II. 

etc. The attempt was made, succeeded, and 
the Church — the greatest of institutions — was 
erected on this foundation of baseless delusions 
by a few credulous fanatics. But this is im- 
possible ; for — 

1st. The disciples could not have even ex- 
pected it. 1. The disciples, immediately after 
the crucifixion, were in a state of deepest de- 
pression. 2. The idea of resurrection was one 
utterly foreign to all ancient thought, so that 
however men might have supposed they had 
seen spirits, the very thought of a body being 
raised from the dead would never have oc- 
curred to them. 3. The disciples did not so 
understand Jesus when he predicted it, as ap- 
pears from the same account w r hich tells of the 
prediction. Therefore they were not expect- 
ing it, but were filled with the prepossession 
and fixed idea of his death and the utter ruin 
of his cause ; yet, expectancy, prepossession, 
and fixed idea, are well established by mental 
physiologists as the necessary mental states to 
enable even enthusiastic and credulous persons 
to mistake subjective impressions for external 
realities {vide Carpenter's "Mental Physiolo- 
gy ") . But since we know that a great change, 
nevertheless, occurred in the minds of the dis- 
ciples in a few days, contrary to their expecta- 
tion ; since, also, the Church was reconstructed 



Ch. 7.] Weight of the Evidence. 247 

od new conceptions of the Messiah — i. e., of a 
spiritual and invisible Messiah, instead of one 
visible and temporal — we infer that Jesus was 
actually raised from the dead. 

2d. But suppose that Mary — a woman — did 
first fancy she saw him alive, and that she con- 
versed with him, and that he promised to meet 
her again, and that she fancied that he did 
again meet her, so that her delusion did not 
vanish ; suppose she had such a series of ideal 
visions and conversations — yet how could she 
have communicated her delusions to the other 
disciples, so that they too would begin to imag- 
ine that they saw the Lord, talked, walked, and 
ate, with him, and touched him, at various 
times and in different places — i. e., not a spirit, 
but the veritable ilesh and bones of his body 
— and that he made engagements for other in- 
terviews with them, and kept them ? And this 
too in a few days after his crucifixion, and when 
his body really lay near by, corrupting in the 
grave ? and that therefore they forthwith pro- 
ceeded to reconstruct the Church on this foun- 
dation, and did greatly succeed in building up 
the most wonderful and enduring institution 
among men on this airy delusion of their fan- 
cies ? and that they all concurred in this same 
identical delusion? Even among lunatics a 
concurrence in their hallucinations is unknown. 



248 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

It is asserted, however, that Mohammed suc- 
ceeded in erecting his Church on such a basis 
of supposed appearances. Now, there is much 
to warrant the conclusion that Mohammed was, 
in part at least, a conscious impostor; but the 
most that can be said is that he undertook his 
thirteen years' mission at Mecca under the 
persuasion that he had received a divine com- 
mission through the angel. Here note: 1. 
That there was no resurrection — an idea not 
natural to the human mind — but an angelic 
appearance, the idea of which is familiar and 
common to enthusiasts ; 2. There is no testi- 
mony of the matter but that of himself; 3. It 
was not capable of refutation, as that of the 
resurrection of a body recently dead would 
have been by the production of the body ; 4. 
Mohammed, in point of fact, never did found 
his Church on such a peaceful basis. It was 
only, after thirteen years, when he grasped the 
sword that he had any success; and if he had 
continued his endeavor to found his Church by 
peaceful means only, the Church of Moham- 
med would never have existed. 

3d. But suppose all these impossible things, 
there yet remains to account for St. Paul's ex- 
traordinary delusion, that he too had seen the 
risen Lord, talked with him, received direc- 
tions as to his future conduct from him, etc. 



Ck. 7.] Weight of the Evidence. 249 

(vide Acts ix. 1-6, 11 ; 1 Cor. xv., etc.), so that 
from a most violent persecutor of the Church 
of Christ he suddenly became its most labori- 
ous missionary, and devoted his whole after- 
life in self-sacrifice to the service of his Mas- 
ter. The 27th chapter of Acts, as well as the 
preceding chapters, prove, beyond the shadow 
of a doubt, that the author of the Acts was a 
companion of Paul. Without doubt, he must 
have received the account of Paul's conversion 
from Paul himself, and therefore, in the cir- 
cumstances thus recorded, we have Paul's own 
account of the occurrences which led to his 
conversion, as he himself believed them. Now, 
how came he to believe in such a delusion — he 
in whom there could be absolutely no expect- 
ancy, and in whom the prepossession and the 
fixed idea, that Jesus was a wicked and dan- 
gerous Impostor, had previously wrought so 
strongly as to impel him to the most violent 
persecution — a persecution which he was then 
on his way to accomplish? How, we say, 
could he, against all his mental prepossessions 
and ideas, have so suddenly, completely, and 
permanently, fallen under such a delusion? 
Nay, so much so as to believe himself blind 
for three days, and at the end of that time to 
feel "as it were scales fall from his eyes," and 
immediately and ever after, at the peril of his 
11* 



250 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

life, unceasingly to labor to build up that cause 
which he had formerly tried to destroy — he, a 
man of the soundest reason, the acutest men- 
tal discrimination, and the highest education 
and cultivation? 

(b) The only alternative left to unbelief is 
the theory that Jesus did not die, but fell into 
a state of syncope, which was mistaken for 
death, and in that state he was taken down 
from the cross, and put into the sepulcher, from 
which he gradually recovered, and thus ap- 
peared again to his disciples. But — 1. Such 
an account never was heard of at the time by 
the enemies of our Lord, nor since, till modern 
times ; 2. His body was in the custody of the 
Romans and Jews ; 3. He had undoubtedly 
been greatly exhausted by his agony in the 
garden, his loss of rest throughout the pre- 
vious night, the excitement of his various 
trials, the weariness of prolonged exertion, 
lasting from the evening before up to the hour 
of his crucifixion, and by his scourging; 4. 
After all this, he hung several hours on the 
cross, and at length was pierced in the side 
by a spear; 5. Afterward, he was laid for 
about thirty -six hours in a cold sepulcher, 
bound up with spices, in bandages and wrap- 
pings. It is incredible that a man could have 
lived through all this ; yet, in addition, he 



Ch. 7.] Weight of the Evidence. 251 

must also have succeeded in freeing himself 
from his bandages, in rolling away the stone 
from the mouth of the sepulcher, and in reach- 
ing the house of some friend in safety, where he 
slowly recovered in secret. But, farther, this 
supposes — 6. That the disciples who saw him 
mistook a slow recovery from extreme exhaus- 
tion and painful wounds for a triumphant res- 
urrection ; 7. That during his recovery, which 
must have taken a long time, and which must 
have been kept a profound secret, the rest of 
the disciples still kept together, and did not 
give way to discouragement and despair, but, 
when at last he was well, were ready, after so 
long a time, to accept the belief that he had 
risen from the dead ; 8. And that they had 
seen him alive a few clays after his resurrec- 
tion; 9. And that Paul too, the persecutor, 
who, in inflicting his persecutions, must have 
heard and disbelieved the story, yet afterward 
imagined he had seen him in. a flash of light- 
ning, which felled him to the earth, and made 
him blind for three days; 9. That the apos- 
tles believed they had at length seen him leave 
the world, and go up to heaven ; 10. That they 
forthwith proceeded to reconstruct the Church 
on this new conception of an invisible and spir- 
itual Messiah ; 11. And that they did, on this 
delusion, actually rear up the greatest and 



252 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

best institution that has ever existed among 
men. 

We conclude that the disciples were neither 
deceivers nor self-deceived, but that the resur- 
rection of our Lord Jesus Christ is a most 
certain fact. As such, it manifests the super- 
human and divine character of Christianity, 
being itself one of the essential facts upon 
which Christianity is built, and from which it 
derives its strength.* Moreover, it establishes 

* To appreciate this more fully, and also to see the har- 
monious unity of the several facts which form the founda- 
tion of the Christian religion, and especially to note how 
the fact of the resurrection, followed by the ascension of 
our Lord, gives completion, while it imparts fresh life and 
meaning, to all the other great facts, let us remember — 1. 
That not only did it, as a miracle alone, give proof of the 
divine mission of Christ, but also as a miracle in fulfillment 
of prophecy. In Ps. xvi. 10 it had been predicted as a sign 
of the Messiah — " Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell [i. e., 
in the grave] ; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to 
see corruption" — and accordingly, Peter, on the day of 
Pentecost, to the murderers of Christ, used this with most 
convincing effect, as a proof of the Messiahship of Christ. 
(Vide Acts ii. 25-31.) 2. It proved his divinity — "De- 
clared to be the Son of God with power, ... by the res- 
urrection from the dead" (Rom. i. 4). 3. It completed the 
work of redemption; for — 1st. It showed that his death 
was by way of atonement, and not of necessity, and proved 
what Christ had said of himself as the good Shepherd, " I 
lay down my life . . . that I might take it again. . . . Ne- 
man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I 



Ch. 7.] Weight of the Evidence. 253 

the general fact of miracles by Christ, and, 
taken with the testimony of the disciples to 
the other miracles, proves them also to have 
been really wrought. 

As such, the miracles display the wisdom, 
the power, and the goodness of Christ, and so 
constitute an harmonious part of that revela- 
tion which he came to give, while also they add 
their own witness to all the other testimonies, 
to form together an inexpugnable evidence of 
the divinity of his religion. 

have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it 
again" (John x. 15-18). In this, as also in that by his 
resurrection, God's acceptance was shown of his sacrifice 
on the cross as fully sufficient an atonement for man, we 
understand how "he was delivered for our offenses, and 
raised again for our justification" (Rom. iv. 25). 2d. It 
showed him to be the Conqueror and Destroyer of "him 
that had the power of death — that is, the devil." 3d. It 
was needful for his ascension, and the fulfillment of his 
great offices of Intercessor and High-priest, of sending 
forth the Holy Ghost, and of "preparing a place" for his 
people. 4. It was the proof, the pattern, and the pledge, 
of our own resurrection from the grave. Thus we see the 
importance of this great fact to the Christian system, the 
perfect correspondence of this fact to all the rest, and the 
perfect completeness in the supply it thus furnishes of the 
whole. This harmony and perfection is found in no other 
system, for no other is the complete revelation of God. 



254 Positive Evidences. [p ar t II. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE SUPERNATURAL RESULTS. 

Finally, we point to the Results of Christian- 
ity — the superhuman moral force and power 
it has wielded for good in the world — in evi- 
dence of its divinity. This is the last crite- 
rion that can be applied, and to this final test 
of experiment — the crucial touch-stone of mod- 
ern science — Christianity, having passed the 
ordeal of all other trials of its truth, fears not 
to be tried by this last means of determina- 
tion, but gladly challenges its examination 
also. 

This too is a practical test capable of being 
applied in every generation and by every man. 
It is one, also, that is as really convincing 
to-day, to the candid and reflecting mind, as 
miracles were in the days of the apostles, and 
as sure a token of the presence of divine en- 
ergy attending the gospel of Christ. "And 
noiv" (i. e., in these days), says Augustin, in 
his sermon on " The Recovery of Sight to 
the Blind," referring to Christ, "he worketh 
greater cures, on account of which he disdained 
not then to exhibit those lesser ones — i. e., cur- 



Ch. 8.] Weight of the Evidence. 255 

ing the blind, etc. For as the soul is better 
than the body, so is the saying health of the 
soul better than the health of the body. The 
blind body doth not now open its eyes by a 
miracle of the Lord, but the blinded heart 
openeth its eyes to the word of the Lord. 
The mortal corpse cloth not now rise again, 
but the soul which lay dead in a living body." 
Indeed, as Van Oosterzee points out, "This 
testimony can be shown in its full force only 
when the kingdom of God shall have been 
completed. . . . Think of the blessed influ- 
ence of Christianity on family life, society, the 
State, civilization, art, science, philosophy — 
the entire life of man and mankind — and, be- 
sides, of all which the history of missions tells 
us of the renewing power of the word of truth. 
Nor must we forget how a great part of the 
most precious of the seed is hidden from the 
short-sighted eye, yet is every now and then 
revealed in a surprising manner. And then, 
after all, ask where we can find a parallel to 
what, in all these respects, the history of God's 
kingdom proclaims. Still, though a full knowl- 
edge of the benefits produced by Christianity 
can thus never be known till eternity, we nev- 
ertheless know sufficient of its potent influ- 
ence for good, both in the past and present, 
over savages and philosophers, to show its 



256 Positive Eculences. [p ar t II. 

incomparable superiority over all other moral 
systems, and such as prove it to be divine." 

I. First we appeal to the personal experi- 
ence of all that have ever sincerely tried Chris- 
tianity. This, we say, is the test of experiment, 
boasted by science as the infallible criterion, 
without the proof of which no theory is to be 
received. But then, on the other hand, no 
theory ought to be rejected that does possess 
this proof. We therefore cheerfully submit 
the claims of our religion to this method of 
verification, only demanding that it be faith- 
fully used by objectors for themselves if they 
will, or if they will not even make trial of it 
themselves, that they will at least give a can- 
did reception of, and belief in, the testimony 
of those who have done so. We ask attention, 
therefore, to the following facts : 

1. All who have embraced Christianity, in 
every age and country, comprising millions of 
souls of every race, condition, sex, and age, 
have testified that Christianity is true. It is 
doubtful whether, of the millions who have 
once embraced it, however even they may 
have afterward relapsed into wickedness, any 
can be produced, either from the history of the 
past, or the multitudes of the present, who 
voluntarily have said, or will say, that they 
have honestly tried Christianity, and found it 



Ch. 8.] Weight of the Evidence. 257 

to be false. Certain it is that the overwhelm- 
ing majority will testify to the contrary, and 
declare that they have found it gloriously true. 
And the exceptions — if exceptions there he — 
may be rationally explained in the same way 
as we account for those no less exceptional ex- 
perimenters in science who separately differ 
from the great body of their brethren as to the 
results of some experiment — viz., because of 
inaccuracy of observation, the influence of 
some particular theory of theirs, etc. Nor 
are such rare exceptions to weigh in our esti- 
mation any more in one case than the other. 
The vast preponderating testimony of the oth- 
er side must be accepted as the only true tes- 
timony given by science as to the result of the 
experiment in question, and it must be so ac- 
cepted also as the real evidence in the matter 
of religion. 

2. These witnesses (vide Home's "Intro- 
duction ") have testified plainly and strongly; 
they have continued their testimony through 
life ; they have done so frequently, when there- 
by they drew upon themselves disgrace, im- 
prisonment, and cruel death; and they have 
done so often, when, by renouncing their prin- 
ciples, they might have enjoyed much of this 
world's fame and fortune. They have there- 
fore given the strongest proofs possible of their 



258 Positice Evidences. [Part II. 

real convictions, and of their belief in the re- 
ligion of Jesus Christ. 

3. They say that Christianity does for them 
what it promises to do ; that God does answer 
prayer; that the Holy Spirit is given them 
through Christ; that their moral natures are 
regenerated ; their souls have a joy, and com- 
fort, and strength, such as the world knows 
not of; they have love for God and man, they 
have purity and truth, when before there was 
malice and hate, uncleanness and falseness; 
that it does support in the hour of trial and 
of death, and that it is by far the most precious 
possession that they have or can have, and 
that they would much rather part with life it- 
self than with it. 

4. For the reality of this change from their 
former state, wrought in them, they affirm 
that they have the testimony of their own con- 
sciousness, which no one can deny, and that 
that consciousness is as clear as that of their 
own being, so that they can no more doubt 
it than they can their own being. They 
point also, confidently, to their changed out- 
ward lives, in which those that before were 
proud are now humble ; those that were wrath- 
ful are now mild ; those that were ambitious, 
avaricious, and sensual, selfish and full of hate; 
are now unworldly, generous, spiritual, self- 



Ch. 8.] Weight of the Evidence. 259 

sacrificing, and loving. And for the truth of 
this they challenge the testimony of those 
around them, of enemies as well as friends. 

5. Farther, this change is not only a change 
of character from what they themselves were 
before — it is a change also from the general 
character of the mass of all other men besides, 
especially from the general character of the 
human race ivherever Christianity has exerted 
no influence. So that all the self-sacrificing 
efforts made in the world for the elevation and 
improvement- of the human family — as by re- 
formers, missionaries, preachers, etc. — all the 
reformatory and charitable institutions of the 
world — are almost, if not altogether, without 
an exception, the work of Christian charity, 
and not that of pagans, Mohammedans, or in- 
fidels. 

6. These witnesses are of the most diverse 
countries and races, and of every age of the 
world since Christ. Among them are many 
who were at first averse, and even hostile, to 
Christianity, and who did their utmost to de- 
stroy it — as, e. g.j Paul and those converted on 
the day of Pentecost, the ancient and modern 
heathen, and many of our own day and coun- 
try, who were once skeptics, but who afterward 
bore witness that they were before in error. 
Some of them too are men of the very highest 



260 Positive Evidences, [Part II. 

and best -trained powers of mind that have 
ever been known, and that too of every class 
of intellect. Philosophers, statesmen, poets, 
scientists — a Paul, a Justin, a Bacon, a New- 
ton — Leibnitz, Shakespeare, Milton, Faraday, 
Agassiz, Maury, and a host of other of the 
most illustrious men, join in testifying their 
firm belief in Christianity. 

Such testimony, continued through so many 
centuries, is sufficient to establish, on any rea- 
sonable ground of evidence, the truth of any 
proposition ; but if, as we have seen is the case 
with Christianity, there is, on the other hand, 
absolutely no adverse testimony, we must accept it 
as true. At any rate, to reject it against this 
concurrent positive testimony of those who 
have put it to the practical test of trial, on 
the ground of any a priori reasoning, not to 
speak of prepossession or prejudice, is to the 
last degree unscientific and absurd. There is 
but one way, under such circumstances, to 
disprove it — viz., by making a fair and candid 
trial of it personally. To such a test Chris- 
tianity continually invites all men, even her 
enemies. " Prove me now herewith, saith the 
Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the win- 
dows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, 
that there shall not be room enough to receive 
it." " Christianity," says Coleridge, " is not a 



Ch. 8.] Weight of the Evidence. 261 

theory or a speculation, but a life ; not a phi- 
losophy of life, but a life, and a living process. 
To the inquiry, How is this to be proved? I 
answer, Try it. It has been eighteen hundred 
years in existence, and has one individual left 
a record like the following : I tried it, and it 
did not answer? Have you ever met with 
any such person in whom you could put full 
confidence? Has it been your own experi- 
ence ? If neither your own experience nor the 
history of almost two thousand years has pre- 
sented a single testimony to this purport, and 
if you have yourself met with some one in 
whom, on any other point, you would place un- 
qualified trust, who, on his own experience, 
made report to you that he is faithful who 
promised, and what he promised he has proved 
himself able to perform, is it bigotry if I fear 
that the unbelief which prejudges and pre- 
vents the experiment with you has its source 
elsewhere than in the uncorrupted judgment; 
that not the strong, free mind, but the enslaved 
will, is the true, original infidel in this in- 
stance ? " 

II. The wonderful results flowing from the 
influence of Christianity are proved also by 
the great changes it has manifestly wrought 
in the world at large. Convincing as is the 
personal testimony of those who have made 



262 Positive Evidences. [PartiL 

trial of the religion of Christ, we are not con- 
fined in our inquiry as to what are its actual 
results to their witness alone. The history 
also of the past, and the state of the world to- 
day, prove beyond controversy the unrivaled 
greatness of those results, both in the depth, 
the wide extent, and the permanence of the 
changes wrought, in proportion to the worldly 
means that it used, and in the amount of good 
produced by them. In both respects those 
results are utterly unapproached in the history 
of mankind ; and while thus they indubitably 
confirm the testimony of Christians as to their 
personal experience of the effects of Christian- 
itj upon the lives of men, it also itself shows 
that those effects are far above merely human 
power, and therefore are divine. 

1. The history of the early growth and prog- 
ress of Christianity strikingly manifests this. 

(1) Under the fiercest persecutions during 
the first three hundred years of its history, and 
though it used no worldly means whatever, 
but constantly taught doctrines of humility, 
unworldliness, and unselfishness — doctrines 
the most repugnant to human nature — the 
Church of Christ, nevertheless, against the 
most powerful and hostile systems of religion, 
and all the civil and military power of Rome 
arrayed against it, grew on, till, from a score 



Ch. 8.] Weight of the Evidence. 263 

or two of despised Jews, it became at last the 
national Church of the vast Roman empire, 
then comprising nearly the whole known world, 
and containing some one hundred and twenty 
million people. 

(2) Its promulgators thus "induced multi- 
tudes of various nations, Romans, Greeks, and 
barbarians, of diverse manners and languages, 
to forsake the religion of their ancestors ; to 
desert ceremonies defended with vigor and au- 
thority, sanctified by remote age, and offering 
the most alluring gratification of the passions, 
to embrace doctrines pure and spiritual, whose 
severe discipline nature still opposes and 
shrinks from, whose high mysteries the pride 
of man prompts him to reject, and whose pro- 
fession required them to reject almost every 
opinion hitherto held sacred, and exposed them 
to fierce and unpitying persecution, even unto 
death." Yet did the Church continue might- 
ily to increase. 

(3) It has since continually increased in 
numbers and in influence. The following ta- 
ble, taken from a late publication, and purport- 
ing to be the work of the historian, "Sharon 
Turner, is perhaps very nearly correct, and 
shows substantially the rate of increase of the 
adherents to Christianity, up to the seven- 
teenth century — viz. : 



264 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

First century 500,000 

Second century 2,000,000 

Third century 5,000,000 

Fourth century 10,000,000 

Fifth century 15,000,000 

Sixth century 20,000,000 

Seventh century 24,000,000 

Eighth century 30,000,000 

Ninth century 40,000,000 

Tenth century 50,000,000 

Eleventh century 70,000,000 

Twelfth century 80,000,000 

Thirteenth century 75,000,000 

Fourteenth century 80,000,000 

Fifteenth century 100,000,000 

Sixteenth century 125,000,000 

Since the sixteenth century Christianity has 
increased still more marvelously, until now 
Johnson's Cyclopaedia (Art. Christianity) gives 
the numbers of Christians, in 1872, throughout 
the world, at 380,000,000. 

It is no slight evidence of its truth, and of 
its divinity, that it has through so many cent- 
uries not only survived the attack of so many 
successive enemies from without, and even the 
frequent betrayals of hypocrites and traitors 
within, 'but has steadily expanded under all dis- 
advantages, in an irresistible progress through- 
out the world. All other systems, at most, 
have spread through one race only, or a few 
kindred races in blood, or contiguous in local 



Ch. 8.] Weight of the Evidence. 265 

habitation; all others have become stagnant, 
and at last faded away before the light of civ- 
ilization. Christianity, in perfect contrast with 
them all, has spread with equal ease through 
the most diverse and distant races, continues 
with ever-increasing energy to subjugate the 
nations, and never has appeared so great and 
powerful as in the unrivaled light of the civ- 
ilization of the present day; so that, while 
polytheism was rejected by all the leaders of 
thought of ancient Greece and Rome, when 
they had become enlightened, Christianity has 
still received the homage of the greatest intel- 
lects, and in the present generation has com- 
manded the assent of such mighty minds as 
those of a Humboldt, a Faraday, and an Agas- 
siz ; and alF this progress, be it remembered, 
has been without the use of worldly power or 
influence. By missionaries, under the sever- 
est deprivations and persecutions, have all her 
advances almost altogether been won, and not 
by the power of the sword,, or by the use of 
worldly inducements. All these have opposed 
themselves to her; nevertheless, she has tri- 
umphed, and still triumphs, over them all. 
On the other hand, no other system among 
men — no philosophy, no scheme of morals, no 
educational system, no religion — has ever, even 
when backed by the rewards of this life and 
12 



266 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

the power of kings, had such general, such per- 
manent, and such continued success. Truly, 
Christianity is above all that is merely human 
— it is divine. 

2. This influence of Christianity has exerted 
over man a superhuman power for good. 

(1) As Christlieb has shown, all our modern 
culture is essentially the product of Christian- 
ity. Our written language even, through the 
influence of the Bible, has been largely affected 
and changed by it. Our arts and sciences — 
music, painting, sculpture, architecture, and 
the modern sciences — took their rise, respect- 
ively, from the devotion and from the spirit of 
free inquiry developed by Christianity; and 
our modern views in relation to marriage and 
the family life, our conceptions of right and 
order, and our habits of assiduous labor, are 
derived from its teachings ; so that it is impos- 
sible to rend asunder our culture and the Chris- 
tian religion ; and therefore, in whatever de- 
gree the former is valuable, credit must be 
given to the latter for its good influences. 

(2) The same author has also pointed out 
that a high and permanent civilization can 
never be wrought out upon any other princi- 
ples than those of Christianity. That princi- 
ple, so unknown to all other religions, as it is, 
and because it is, also to all the natural im- 



Ch. 8.] Weight of the Eoidence. 267 

pulses of human nature, but which is the fun- 
damental principle of Christianity — viz., the 
principle of pure benevolence, or love to all, 
as opposed to selfishness, alienation, and hate 
— must necessarily form the basis of all high 
and enduring advancement in human culture. 
The following quotation, also taken from a con- 
temporary secular journal, well shows this: 
"~No candid observer will deny that whatever 
good there may be in our American civiliza- 
tion, it is the product of Christianity. Still 
less can he deny that the grand motives which 
are working for the elevation and purification 
of our society are strictly Christian. The im- 
mense energies of the Christian Church, stim- 
ulated by the love that shrinks from no obsta- 
cle, are all bent toward this great aim of uni- 
versal purification. These millions of sermons 
and exhortations, which are a constant power 
for good; these countless prayers and songs 
of praise, on which the heavy-laden lift their 
hearts above the temptations and the sorrows 
of the world — are all the product of faith in 
Jesus Christ. That which gives us protection 
by day and night — the dwellings we live in, 
the clothes we wear, the institutions of social 
order — all these are the direct offspring of 
Christianity. All that distinguishes us from 
the pagan world, all that makes us what we 



268 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

are, and all that stimulates us in the task of 
making us better than we are, is Christian. A 
belief of Jesus Christ is the very fountain-head 
of every thing that is desirable and praise- 
worthy in our civilization, and this civilization 
is the flower of time. Humanity has reached 
its noblest thrift, its grandest altitudes of ex- 
cellence, its high-water mark, through the in- 
fluence of this faith." 

(3) Christianity is the only hope of the pres- 
ent heathen world. Just as it was the only 
means which rescued the ancient heathens 
from the deep abyss of depravity and misery 
into which they had sunk, so now, if Christian- 
ity is not able to regenerate the present hea- 
thens of Asia and Africa, there is no other 
power that offers to do it. Those who object- 
to Christianity would do well to ask them- 
selves whether skepticism will rescue the de- 
graded millions of India, and China, and bar- 
barous Africa ; or, if they have any plan, or 
are ready to put in operation any effort, to 
save them from the degradations and miseries 
of their abject superstitions. If not, and if 
Christianity cannot, then the larger part of 
the inhabitants of the earth are abandoned to 
hopeless despair. Commerce, unattended by 
Christianity, cannot do it. Bare commerce, 
undertaken, as it is, only for the purposes of 



Ch. 8.] Weight of the Evidence. 269 

gain, and in many ways ministering to the evil 
passions of men — trading in the intoxicating 
liquors, the opium, etc., desired by the debased 
habits and tastes of savages and half-civilized 
nations — bare commerce, exhibiting at best 
the lower appetites of men, and too frequently 
carried on through wicked men, can do noth- 
ing of itself to refine and elevate them. What- 
ever is so done must be from the occasional 
and incidental association which those hea- 
then may meet in commerce with men of su- 
perior character and habits, from Christian 
lands. But such men are superior to the hea- 
then only because they do belong to Christian 
nations, and have, to a greater or less extent, 
imbibed from the Christian atmosphere in 
which they have been nurtured something of 
Christian feelings and principles. Even what 
good influence, then, that commerce may exert 
upon the heathen is traceable to Christianity ; 
and thus, again, Christianity is seen to be the 
only hope of the present immense world of the 
heathen. 

(4) But we have the positive evidence of the 
wonderful power of Christianity, in modern 
times, upon men plunged in the lowest depths 
of heathen ignorance and depravity. "Sixty 
years ago," says Anderson, in a late essay on 
Missions, "there was not a solitary native 



270 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

Christian in Polynesia ; now it would be diffi- 
cult to find a professed idolater in the islands 
of Eastern or Central Polynesia, where Chris- 
tian missionaries have been established. The 
hideous rites of their forefathers have ceased 
to be practiced. Their heathen legends and 
war-songs are forgotten ; their cruel and deso- 
lating tribal wars, which were rapidly destroy- 
ing the population, appear to be at an end. 
They are gathered together in peaceful village 
communities ; they live under recognized codes 
of laws ; they are constructing roads, cultivat- 
ing their fertile lands, and engaging in com- 
merce. On the return of the Sabbath, a very 
large proportion of the population attend the 
worship of God, and, in some instances, more 
than half the adult population are recognized 
members of Christian Churches. They edu- 
cate their children, endeavoring to train them 
for usefulness in after-life. They sustain their 
native ministers, and send their noblest sons 
as missionaries to the heathen lands which lie 
farther west. There may not be the culture, 
the wealth, the refinement, of the older lands 
of Christendom. These things are the slow 
growth of ages ; but these lands must no longer 
be regarded as a part of heathendom. In God's 
faithfulness and mercy, they have been won 
from the domains of heathendom, and have 



Ch. 8.] Weight of the Ecidence. 271 

been added to the domains of Christendom.* 
Could any power on earth have so changed 
those savage islanders except the gospel? 
From being cannibals, in a few years they 
have established all the forms and institutions 
of civilized life. This great change could not 
have been effected by any educational process. 
To-day there are highly educated men in India, 
but they are still heathen. Nana Sahib, one 
of the leaders of the Sepoy rebellion, the au- 
thor of the Cawnpore massacre, was a well-ed- 
ucated man, not only in his own language, but 
also in English. His favorite poet was Lord 
Byron. Yet he was truly a heathen. ... No 
religion refines and purifies as Christianity. 
. . . But the most remarkable results of mis- 
sionary labor are in the Fiji Islands. . . . 
Thirty years ago they were all cannibals. A 
more degraded race of men could not be found ; 
but in thirty years they have become a civil- 
ized Christian people. . . . Their language has 
been mastered, school and religious books writ- 
ten, . . . and twenty-two thousand two hun % 
dred are members of the Church; the larger 
part of the children are in the Sunday-school; 
they have six hundred and sixty -three native 
ministers, and more than one thousand school- 
teachers teach thirty- six thousand pupils in 

* Report of London Missionary Society for 1866, p. 7. 



272 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

their schools." These instances may suffice, 
without citing other remarkable instances — 
such as that of Madagascar, and other heathen 
lands. They are fully sufficient to prove that 
in modern times, as well as when in ancient 
days the gospel regenerated the heathen na- 
tions, Christianity has a power, never other- 
wise beheld, to elevate and purify the basest of 
mankind — a power superhuman and divine. 

Thus the actual results of Christianity, at- 
tested both by the personal testimony of those 
who have practically tested her divine power, 
and by the great and permanent moral changes 
for the better apparent throughout her past 
history, and occurring also in our own day — 
results that no human wisdom or power has 
ever been able to effect, but which have, never- 
theless, been wrought by Christianity, without 
the aid of human power — these also give in- 
controvertible evidence to the superiority of 
Christianity to all that is human, and assert 
that she is no less than divine. 



Ch. 9.] Weight of the Evidence. 273 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE WEIGHT OF THE EVIDENCE — RECAPITULA- 
TION AND CONCLUSION. 

In conclusion, let us now sum up the evidence 
that has been adduced, and estimate its weight. 
The question before us is whether or not Chris- 
tianity is superhuman and divine. In its 
decision we have seen, first, that a divine rev- 
elation is possible ; that human testimony is 
competent to prove it ; and that the evidence 
in this particular case shows that the narrative 
of the facts, cited to prove it, must be accepted 
as authentic and true. We have next exam- 
ined those facts, group by group, and from 
them endeavored to show the divinity of Chris- 
tianity as displayed alike in the origin and 
divine character of its Founder, its own di- 
vine teaching, its miraculous attendant cir- 
cumstances in both prophecies and miracles, 
and its superhuman and divine results. These, 
let it be noted, are all evidences of matters of 
fact. On the other hand, there is absolutely 
no rival system of moral truth that has, or 
pretends to have, any evidence whatever, of 
such matters of fact, to support its claim. 
12* 



274 Positioe Evidences. [p ar t II. 

There is, then, no positive evidence of any op- 
posing system being true. There are only 
some objections against Christianity, and these 
are not founded upon any contradictory evi- 
dence relating to the facts essential to Chris- 
tianity, but only'upon certain a priori specula- 
tions, and theories, or alleged facts of physical 
science, etc., which, if true, are, at most, but 
doubtfully inconsistent themselves with the 
great facts of Christianity, and for whose truth 
it may confidently be asserted that there is 
not a tithe of the evidence that there is for 
the truth of the latter — and which, in fine, are 
altogether denied by some scientists of great 
authority, and maintained by others to be not 
inconsistent with Christianity. 

But, to perceive the extreme absurdity of 
such objections, let us remember that, were 
there beyond question a set of facts proved, 
which were apparently wholly inconsistent 
with Christianity, we still, upon the principles 
of science itself, should not be justified there- 
fore in rejecting Christianity, if Christianity 
also has uncontroverted evidence of its own 
to show that its claims are true, for both 
may be true. It is not unknown in the histo- 
ry of science that two facts, or two sets of facts, 
have been proved by equal evidence to exist, 
which at first seemed utterly inconsistent with 



Ch. 9.] Weight of the Evidence. 27& 

each other. But the truly scientific course 
in such a case was not to reject either, but, 
ascribing the difficulty, where it belongs, to 
our weakness of reason, etc., to go patiently to 
work to discover their real relation and actual 
harmony. So we must do in the case of sci- 
ence and Christianity. Besides, on what prin- 
ciple are we authorized to reject one set of 
facts, if supported by proper evidence, in favor 
of another set, which also are supported only 
by evidence ? If Christianity and science re- 
ally do come in conflict, why not reject science 
if Christianity possesses sufficient evidence of 
its truth ? Whether it has such sufficient evi- 
dence is indeed another question, and proper 
to be asked ; but if it has, it is not to be then 
set aside because it is supposed to conflict with 
some other system which is itself established 
only because it too has sufficient evidence. In 
fine, the whole question is manifestly but a 
. question of evidence. If there is not sufficient 
positive evidence for the establishment of 
Christianity, then we must reject it; if there 
is, we must, on scientific principles, admit its 
claims, though there even be (which, indeed, in 
the judgment of many of the best scientists, is 
very far from certain) some other facts undoubt- 
edly proved which, to our imperfect minds, seem 
to be entirelv inconsistent therewith. 



276 Positive Evidences. [p ar t II. 

The same difficulty continually occurs also 
in trials at law. Almost always, in the trial 
of causes, there are some circumstances proved 
which seem to be contradictory to the decision 
rendered. Nevertheless, a decision of some 
sort must be made ; and it is properly thought, 
in such cases, that the circumstances which 
may apparently contradict what seems, upon 
the whole, to be the truth of the matter, are 
not really contradictory, but only, because of 
our want of full information, weakness of rea- 
son, etc., incapable of being harmonized by us. 

Nay, in the commonest affairs of life — in 
those things which are most open to our in- 
spection, most familiar to us, and therefore 
most likely to be understood — there exists, in 
very many cases, this apparent contradiction, 
unexplainable by us. Surely this should teach 
us humility, and lead us to beware of saying, 
in the higher and more difficult things of re- 
ligion and science, because, in the judgment 
of some, though not of others, there exists an 
apparent inconsistency, that therefore Chris- 
tianity must be rejected. 

Christianity, then, must have its claims de- 
cided independently — just as those of science or 
any other system are — by the positive evi- 
dences it adduces for their establishment. 
Accordingly, to those evidences we confidently 



Ch. 9.] Weight of the Evidence. 277 

appeal, and assert that, upon all the settled 
rules of evidence, as quoted in Part First — 
rules which are always followed everywhere 
else, in common life, in trials at law, and in 
the researches of science, for the establish- 
ment of matters of fact — those evidences are 
overwhelmingly conclusive in its favor. For, 

1st. Every kind of evidence possible in the 
nature of the case is presented in its favor. 
We should indeed demand that a religion pro- 
fessing to be divine should give some evidence 
of its divinity in — (1) The origin and (2) the 
character of its Founder; (3) his teaching; 
(4) his prophecies ; (5) his miraculous works ; 
(6) and in the actual results accomplished 
among men. But we can demand no other 
kind of evidence. But Christianity, and no 
other religion, has them all. What more can 
we ask? 

2d. On the other hand, to disbelieve Chris- 
tianity, we must believe — (1) That it arose, 
not as alleged (though its alleged origin is 
uncontradicted by any evidence), but in some 
other way, unknown and inconceivable, but 
yet sufficient to produce, what Christianity 
undoubtedly is, the purest and mightiest moral 
system that has ever existed on earth. (2) 
That the testimon}^ of Christ and his apostles, 
though they are acknowledged to have been 



278 Positive Evidences. [Part II. 

the wisest and best of men, was false, or that 
Christ never really existed, and those wonder- 
ful books of the Gospels which give an account 
of his life — impossible for merely human abil- 
ity to produce at all — were forgeries and lies, 
and that when there was no worldly advantage 
to gain from the lie, but every thing to lose. 
(3) That vast numbers of people, including 
fierce and watchful enemies as well as friends, 
were deceived about frequent and public mira- 
cles, or, knowing their falsity, yet remained 
silent about them. (4) That the prophecies, 
extending through generations for their fulfill- 
ment, were but the result of human sagacity 
and penetration. (5) Finally, that all Chris- 
tians have, in all succeeding ages, been mis- 
taken as to their own experience, and have 
been miserably deluded, even to the endurance 
of torture and death, sooner than they would 
renounce their religion. Surely it requires 
more credulity to assent to the asseverations 
of infidelity than to believe in Christ.* 

*The Unbeliever's Creed. — "1. I believe there is 
no God, but that matter is God, and God is matter, and 
that it is no matter whether there is any God or no. 2. I 
believe that the world was not made ; that the world made 
itself; that it had no beginning, and that it will last for- 
ever, world without end. 3. I believe that man is a beast ; 
that the soul is the body, and the body is the soul ; and 



Ch. 9.] Weight of the Evidence. 272 

3d. Finally, the full force of the argument 
is to be seen only when we consider not only 
the weight of the evidence, which each of the 
great facts adduced in support of Christianity 
carries, but their cumulative, overpowering 
weight when taken together. The improba- 
bility of Christianity's being false arises not 
merely from the improbability that any one 
of these remarkable characteristics should be 
found attending a false system, but from the 
almost infinite improbability that so many of 
those characteristics should so harmoniously 
coincide therein. It is a settled point in courts 
of law that, in the trial of causes, the decision 
should not be reached by the consideration of 
any single matter of fact, but by the consider- 
ation of all the issues in the case, and what 
upon the whole is established by the prepon- 
derating evidence. This principle is fully ad- 
after death there is neither body nor soul. 4. I believe 
that there is no religion ; that natural religion is the only 
religion ; and that all religion is unnatural. 5. I believe 
not in Moses ; I believe in the First Philosophy ; I believe 
not the Evangelists ; I believe in Chubb, Collins, Hume, 
Voltaire, and Tom Paine ; I believe not St. Paul. 6. I 
believe not Kevelation ; I believe in the Talmud and the 
Koran; I believe not the Bible; I believe in Socrates" 
I believe in Confucius ; I believe in Mohammed ; I believe 
not in Christ. 7. Lastly, I believe in all unbelief." — 
Home's Introduction, Vol. I., p. 159, Note 4. 



280 Positive Evidences. [Partll. 

mitted in the investigations of science also 
(vide Jevouo's " Principles of Science," L, 239) ; 
and the rule which is there laid down to ascer- 
tain the probability of any conclusion is, to 
multiply together "the fractions expressing 
the probabilities of the premises," and the 
fraction resulting will express the probability 
of the whole taken together. For instance, if 
we have live facts concurring to establish a 
conclusion, and the probability of each of those 
supporting facts is as 5 to 1, or f, the proba- 
bility of the conclusion, derived from the con- 
currence of those separate five probable facts, 
is found by multiplying the fraction { by itself 
five times, amounting to ^^, or as 5625 to 1. 
Now, applying this to ascertain the degree of 
probability of the divinity of the Scriptures, 
we get an almost infinite probability. Take, 
for example, the first set of facts adduced — 
viz., the preparation of the world for Christ's 
coming. Even infidels must admit, to account 
upon their own theories for the great and rapid 
spread of Christianity, that the world was ripe 
for his coming. They must also admit, seeing 
the utter final failure of all other would-be 
reformers, even such as Socrates, Plato, Con- 
fucius, or as Voltaire, Rousseau, etc. — whom 
some claim to be equal, or even superior, to 
Christ — that such an exceedingly favorable 



Ch. 9.] Weight of the Evidence. 281 

opportunity for reforming mankind "but seldom 
occurs. We are authorized, then,. in asserting 
that the improbability of such a concurrence 
of favorable circumstances happening to a 
merely, human teacher, who could have no 
power of previously arranging them, is very 
great. Adding to this the prophecies that 
foretold so minutely the coming of Jesus, the 
improbability of the concurrence of a second 
such fortunate coincidence is made much 
greater, and, since this is the sole case of the 
kind in the history of the world, can be ac- 
counted as no less than many thousands to 
one — let us, however, with extreme reserve 
say, as 20 to 1, or ^-. Again, the improbabil- 
ity that such a Teacher should far surpass in 
character all others of the human race, is 
equal, at least, to the whole number of the 
human family to one — that is, some hundreds 
of thousands of millions to one — but still let 
us say this too is but as ^±. So, respectively, 
as to the superiority of his teaching far sur- 
passing all that all others have taught; his 
wonderful works, esteemed by all that saw 
him as miracles ; his predictions, and the 
amazing results of his mission — let us estimate 
the improbability of each occurring in a mere- 
ly human system at the same ratio of ^ (al- 
though since, in fact, the whole multitude of 



282 Positice Ecidences. [Part II. 

human systems — much more in number than 
20 — from time to time propounded, have 
been, without exception, deficient in all these 
particulars, this is, without doubt, a ratio 
much too small), and multiply. The result is 
3200 i 00QQ , or it is 32,000,000 times to 1 improb- 
able that these characteristics should concur 
in any merely human system ; in other words, 
it is 32,000,000 times to 1 probable that Chris- 
tianity is superhuman and divine. We be- 
lieve this is much below the true probability. 
But if any one thinks this ratio of ^- in each 
of the above cases is too great, let him put it 
at 5 to 1 — nay, take even 2 to 1 — and still, in 
the latter case, we shall have, as the proba- 
bility of our conclusion, 32 to 1 — a proportion 
which ought to satisfy every candid mind. 

We conclude, then, our review with the full 
conviction that Christianity, beyond any rea- 
sonable doubt, is truly divine. 

(Finished Christmas-day, 1879. Laus Deo!) 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: August 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 



